


Look, It's Not What It Sounds Like

by arienai



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Choking, Established VKaz, F/M, Femdom, Graphic Torture, I thought this went without saying but Ocelot is still gay in this, Implied Ocekaz, MGSrarepairweek, More than Implied Ocekaz, Threesomes, Watersports, With Pequod, extra mild dubcon, foot worship, mild dubcon, progressive het
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-07
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2018-09-30 01:57:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 40,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10150622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arienai/pseuds/arienai
Summary: Quiet and Ocelot have a lot of interests in common, but nobody else on Mother Base gives their relationship a second thought.Maybe they should have.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt #1 - Uncomfortable Situations

'Revolver' Ocelot, huh. Yeah, sure. We can talk about Ocelot. What do you want to know?

My relationship with him? What, why? We were the only people on that oil rig who _weren't_ fucking.

...Well, okay. But I swear to you, it's not what it sounds like.

 

Look, I don't even want to talk about the comedy of errors that led up to this point. You botch _one_ job and suddenly you all you can do is speak Navajo with your asscheeks hanging out. I'm not saying there aren't perks to becoming a parasite zombie - I was a solid 25/25 on my PWT, but now I'm like 2500 - but I didn't exactly ask for this. When you wake up after a flaming freefall out a three-story window only to have your boss tell you he turned you into a mutant biohazard without your consent you'll have a resting bitch face for the next four years, too.

I already had one foot out the door at this point, is what I'm trying to say.

This text-to-speech shit is dope, by the way. I sound like HAL 9000 swallowed helium.

Where was I...? Oh yeah, I guess you do need some context. I didn't always have R&D to make me badass battle bikinis, I had to jury rig my own. At first I thought 'fuck it, I'll fight naked'. As you do when you hear that every inch of exposed skin makes you better, stronger, faster. But then you realize that stepping on sharp rocks still hurts, so, boots. And you have to lay down to make long shots and that nipple chafes something fierce, and it's fucking Afghanistan so you're rubbing sand into your snatch. Either it's dry and rubs you raw or it's wet and it gets stuck in there for days. After a little troubleshooting I figured out the optimal configuration was boots and a bikini with minimalist webbing to hold my magazines and shit.

The fishnets? They held the panties up. Believe or not you can't sign in for your quota of thongs from the XOF QM.

This is context because you need to understand that I was laying around on Mother Base flashing my tits and ass all day. This isn't where I expected to be, believe me, I took one look at Ocelot's professional fetish dungeon and thought, well, fuck me sideways. They're going to lock me up somewhere the sun doesn't shine so I can't regenerate and boil me in oil or something. Rip my eyes out with fishhooks. Ocelot's smirking like he's about to nut every time the boss isn't looking and the boss's bitch - or at least what's left of him - looks like he doesn't know if he wants to murder me or fuck my corpse.

But no. This master Soviet interrogator pokes me with cattle prods a few times and calls it a day. And I'm like, bitch, I got set on fire. What do you expect me to do? Cry because I touched the edge in Operation?

See, don't tell anyone I said this, but the boss is a soft touch when it comes to this stuff. I guess when you have what real torture looks like riding your dick every day you don't want more maladjusted mouthbreathing staff who sound like they're permanently on the rag.

Yeah, brilliant observation. I didn't like the unambiguously gay duo. They nag each other like housewives and the sexual tension is so thick it'd satisfy a 50-year-old hooker. They've been like that since the 70s. I thought they were such catty little cunts to each other because they were in love with the same guy.

I thought a lot of stupid things back then.

Anyway, the boss wouldn't even let them dunk me in seawater. They threw a bucket at me - what a fucking joke. And my 'cell' was open air with all the fresh water I could drink. I mean, I'm not an idiot. I figured out they were trying to get me to expose my master plan. Hah. Joke's on them - I didn't have one. Sure I had my old boss's master plan, but frankly, fuck it. Also: this isn't even the dude who had me immolated and defenestrated in the first place. It's some guy who laid there like 'oh shit' while that guy tried to give me the worst piggyback ride of my life. I'm not mad. I could have shot him on the back on that fucking helicopter. Or any time we were in the field together.

Or I could get off that sinking ship while I still had the chance.

So there I was weighing my options in my skivvies with fuck all else to do. For days. They didn't even give me reading material. Weeks rolled by. Months. I don't eat, I don't piss, I don't shit. Literally my only entertainment is taunting my guards.

Like most military outfits the Diamond Dogs are light sprinkling of tacos on an ocean of sausages and what's worse, these guys have nowhere to go to get laid. Mrs and Mrs Venom Snake come down like a jackhammer on fraternization of the non-consensual variety, there are only so many girls in the first place, only so many of them are straight, and only so many of those are sluts. Now the sluts are having the time of their lives but, statistically, most guys are stuck with a terminal case of blue balls.

And here's this hot, wet chick in a bikini that at least one of your bosses might look the other way if you roughed up and you've gotta spend an eight-hour shift looking at her. At first it was _hilarious_. I mean I'd shower while running my hands over myself like a stripper, bend over to 'stretch', basically hump the bed they gave me and there was absolutely nothing they could do. They'd call me a bitch and a whore while sporting a boner and go beat it in the porta potty. The bars weren't for me, they were for them - to keep them from coming in where I could crush their sad swollen nuts.

But, see, I had _nothing_ to do. And some of these guys weren't bad-looking, either. Some of them made pretty tempting offers while their buddies weren't around. I'm being watched 24/7 and starting to wonder if Ocelot isn't some psy ops savant after all: this is how they break me, horniness and boredom. Yes I'll tell you whatever you want, turn on my old boss, just please let me ride my hot guard's face or watch some television.

That's when Ocelot comes in. He's watched me before. Taken notes. Reported to the boss. He's never paid me much attention and it's not hard to see why: he looks at the boss like a housecat looks like at an open can of tuna - if Miller's back was ever turned he'd swallow the boss's dick so fast he'd choke on it. I'm thinking, that's a shame. He's got a nice face, washboard abs, is in a position to abuse his authority if you know what I mean, but no, he looks at _me_ like I'm an interesting animal on the boss's rescue platform.

This time he dismisses my guards and tells them he'll look after me himself. I figure he wants to study me at best or try some new softcore torture porn at worst, but he just takes a seat on the bench, turns his _back_ , and pulls out a book.

"Thought you might like some privacy."

Do I really need to point out that it's him talking? I mean if there's talking it's not me.

Even if it wasn't obvious what he's trying to insinuate he's got this _smirk_ that'd let you know, trust me. At first I'm like, what the fuck. Cocksucker or not, this is creepy. But you've got to understand how hard up I am at this point. I'm taking cold showers just to keep from burning a hole in my thong. So I think, well, fuck it - I roll over and rub my crotch against the pillow. If he wants a show, this is the least satisfying PG-13 experience I can come up with.

Yeah, he doesn't even glance my way.

It's still weird, and needless to fucking say there are no homosexual Russian cowboys in my spank bank material, but I keep looking at him to make sure he doesn't turn around the whole time I'm biting into the blanket to keep shit muffled. I'm sweating and drooling and my shaking thighs are rattling the shitty cot against the bars and I can't help making a little noise when I'm close, never could, but he's more curious about his intelligence report on a five-man backwater Afghan outpost than what my o-face looks like.

This'll sound petty as fuck, but it's almost a little insulting. I mean, if he's that gay, shouldn't he be grossed out by it? And if he's _not_ , what's his _problem_?

No, Ocelot just waits until I'm done and gets up with that smug smirk and says: "How about I bring some music next time?"

For real, he does. He comes back the next day with a stereo.

What a patronizing dickhead, I'm thinking. But it's so nice to have _something_ to look forward to...

Anyway you know how the story goes from here, right? I find out he's not such a dickhead after all: he backs me up when I want to head out with the boss. Trusts me. Sure maybe he's doing because it makes Miller frothier than he already is, but beggars can't be choosers. He keeps my weapons well-oiled, too, because I'm not allowed to have them back on Mother Base at first. It's all for show but Ocelot clearly understands that. At that point I'm starting to get the impression he vouched for me because he wanted my skills supporting the boss in the first place and I'm playing right into his hands.

But, frankly, so what? Two people can use each other and still get off.

He _never_ looks. Or if he has to for some reason he never gives a shit. I can strip down and wash my outfit, rinse out my snatch, jam my fingers in there or the goddamn showerhead and ride it like it was the last orgasm I'd ever get and, nope. He'll look up inadvertently if I make too much noise but right back down again. His dick is always softer than a baby's ass.

It would've been fine, but, goddammit. I went from spending days around horny guys I found moderately attractive to spending days alone with...

Yeah, I know it's no secret, me and the boss. But this is before that loose, angry little asshole left him. He was interested, though, no question. It dropped down to minus twelve one night up near the Kush and we had to share body heat - he was hard for like an hour. When I fell asleep he _called home_ and jerked off. Bullshit. Just, bullshit. I made bedroom eyes and waggled my butt and did everything but write FUCK ME on the wall of that helicopter and, nada. _Interest_ , clear as day, but no _payoff_.

If it was any other guy I'd offer to share, but there's no fucking way my muff is getting anywhere near Cipher's personal manslut and whatever my old boss and the Russians gave him.

No the only man I got to be alone with without real-time audiovisual feed to his needy cocksleeve was my gay Soviet clam spank warden.

It is not my proudest moment, yeah, but I was so frustrated... you don't even know. I made it so he couldn't ignore me. Ground against the bars, moaned like a fucking porn star. Sucked on my fingers and spread my legs and gestured that yes, door's open, come on in. He just looks up with his little smirk and... _watches_ the whole thing. Watches me thumb my nipples and lick the bar like it was his dick and finger my own asshole and he barely even _blinks_. Isn't hard, isn't even flushed. Not even breathing faster.

He _laughs_.

And then - I shit you not - starts sucking on his own glove. Just, his index finger pressed against his lips. So I can just barely see his tongue. Stretches like a cat and slowly, so fucking slowly trails wet fingertips down his throat and into his open shirt. I catch a _millimeter_ of pink nipple and I am so thirsty I'd drink his piss if it got his dick hard. He covers his mouth again with the other one and the way he licks his fingers leaves no room for the imagination, not with the way he parts them two and two and laps at the inside and holy fucking fuck _damn_ I want that mouth on my clit, I am so moist I am _melting_ , and I can't take it anymore.

So I, uh, phased through the bars, shoved him down, pinned his wrists and wrapped my thighs around his head. I get like a second of remorse - 'but he was totally asking for it!' is not going to go over well with Miller during my trial and execution for raping the head of our intelligence division - before I feel him start to go work. No struggles, no complaints.

Do you want me to describe it? Give it an out of ten? Because, seriously, it was like a 9.3. You know how some guys are too into it and suck too hard or think you want them to use their teeth? Or how some get bored and go too fast? Nothing. Ocelot licked all of my pubic hair out of the way first like he was a professional clearing his workspace and made sure every part of my labia got a tongue bath. The whole time the point of his nose is jammed up against my clit, which he gauges like it's a pressure sensor from sucking it raw to tapping it with just the tip of his tongue. No hands. Infinite patience. Smirk still written all over his face.

Which I'd rather not be thinking about, I'd rather be thinking about somebody with a broader chest whose hands aren't daintier than my little sister's and I squeezed his head a little, forced it back to I wouldn't have to look at it, got up a little higher. Far as I can tell he damn near unhinged his jaw and pushed his whole tongue up into my hole and kept it there, like it was the smallest, softest cock and if I ground down on his face I could ride it.

So I did. I let go of his wrists and grabbed his hair - I could feel one of his hands on my hip, I'd closed my eyes at this point, the other held a thumb pressed to my clit rubbing it in slow circles while I face-fucked him - and I rode it until my legs were trembling and my muscles were spasming and I came so hard my teeth chattered.

He reached up to cover my mouth so I wouldn't say the word 'fuck'. Which would've been English. And very, very bad.

It's bad all around, actually, because now I know that he knows something he _can't_ know. Not yet. Because he's got this half-razor sharp, half-opaque glassy look in his eyes. Because for a card carrying queer he just gave better head than ninety-nine out of a hundred straight men.

Because that's around the time I started to figure out that absolutely everything about Ocelot is bullshit.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #2 - Secrets

Of course, what he actually _says_ is: "I wouldn't make too much noise, if I were you. Compromising circumstances to get caught in to say the least."

Like I hadn't just been doing my best impression of a girl hamming it up like she hopes it'll finish off her first boyfriend's whiskey dick on prom night. Like there isn't a stereo blaring the Red Army's top 40 in the background. Like the world's angriest war prostitute hasn't installed video cameras somewhere in my cell so he can fondle his four-incher to the sight of me in the shower.

But what's my game plan here? How am I going to find out what he knows when I can't even talk? What if he really doesn't know, and just doesn't want to get caught? What if we do get caught and Miller uses this as an excuse to send me down with the dive team? What if he tells on me to the boss, and, well... Hey, I told you he was a soft touch, and as far as _anybody_ else on the base knows Ocelot wouldn't touch a tit if you paid him.

Then I'm thinking, wait, is that what he meant to insinuate? Was that a threat? His silence for my... well, not silence obviously, but not breaking his neck with my thighs right now.

Or something. Because oh my fucking god, yeah, then it dawns on me: he's a spook.

Now not to go off on a tangent here but with XOF being a darker, edgier CIA, I know a thing or two about spooks. I _guess_ you could have called me an 'operative' instead an 'operator' and I _guess_ that technically would've been true but, like, if my two dozen failed seduction rolls in this story haven't made it clear already, I was more pointy shooty and stabby chokey than a plant or a face or a honey pot.

But it doesn't take one to know one, it takes one who's known one - or like a hundred - to know one. This cagey fucker just earned my trust, got into my head, seduced me, and now he's blackmailing me. The quad-fecta of the company ubermensch.

And there's sweet fuck all I can do to question him. Butt naked, sitting on his chest, with my pussy juice all over his face - this is like the third or fifth most fucked up situation I've ever been in.

_Obviously_ I'm not the best person in the world at improvisation, but I figure I can sketch - hey does this have Cyrillic? No? Well, "Cheka" on his chest--

Oh it means "committee" the short form looks like "4K" in English--

What, seriously? "Committee." KGB. Like you call the CIA "the Company." Seems like the Cold War ended, like, yesterday - ask your parents. Or search the "world wide web" or whatever.

Oh no he knows I speak Russian at this point. While they were interrogating me he pointed out to the boss and his bitch that clearly I could understand instructions in English, so playing linguistic roulette was pointless. I was pretty damn poker faced about responding to anything else if I say so myself, then he walked me back to my cell and suddenly his eyes go wide at something and he shouts BEHIND YOU like we're about to get hit by one of the construction booms and I turn around and--

Yeah, he said it in fucking Russian. There's nothing there and when I turn back he's smirking his shit-eating smirk again, like 'well that's one down.'

Anyway, Ocelot shakes his head and points down at his feet. It is at this point I notice he has one of his god-fearing American guns out, by the way. Like, behind my back. Ready to blow my head off if I did decide to break his neck.

'Boots' are what the KGB calls the GRU. Because combat boots I guess. Military intelligence.

So I'm thinking, bullshit, the GRU doesn't play this way, but hey, what do I know? We don't actually play with the GRU all that much. Their counterparts are in the CSS. Maybe they do have a brigade of Soviet bears and blond twinks that jump behind enemy lines to comfort lonely men in foxholes.

What kind of spy admits he's a spy anyway?

The sad part is I still kind of want his dick now that I know he'll know how to use it. I don't know what kind of personal training honey traps do or how they're evaluated or if they have their own... Weapons Handling Test... but trust me, it's effective, I would know. I said I worked with a lot of spooks.

This is awkward, so I just bail. As tempting as it is to have my own communist fuck doll I know from experience that the more you ride their cocks the deeper they dig their claws in. Phase back into my cell, put my clothes back on. He follows me in, uses _my_ shower to wash his face and chest and makes my striptease look like a fucking middle schooler's - "Same time tomorrow?"

_Fuck_.

Like, yeah, obviously.

The next time I'm out with the boss it's for over a week, so we get some down time. He likes downtime out in the field; downtime back home means Miller whinging at him until he shoves his cock down his throat. Look, I'm sure Miller's blowjobs are great. Best money can buy. But the guy goes so full-blown hysterical the second the boss does something he doesn't like I'm starting to wonder if the Russians got him pregnant. What I'm saying is, the boss deserves his guy time.

We sit together in the guard tower of a captured Soviet outpost and watch the sunset, listen to music, smoke. Routine maintenance of our weapons and kit. Well, his kit. I guess I could put a few more tactical holes in my fishnets before they lose their structural integrity. I kick my boots off and the boss rubs my feet and you know what, that's cool. Nothing frustrating at all about that. If I get too thirsty I'll just take another drink of rophenol-flavored vodka.

Usually, we don't talk. What's the point? It's pretty self-evident when he's up shit creek and I figure he deserves his peace and quiet. We're not on a mission so Miller and Ocelot are off sleeping and the B-team's on the radio. Now it won't land him in the dog house when we get back, so I turn it off.

"Something to say to me, huh." You know him. Strong, silent type. Just pulls the cigar out of his mouth and smiles like I could ask him anything in the world.

It's frustrating, you know. But, also, better? I do have shit to say to him but this way I can't run my mouth. He's pretty good at reading me, always has been. Same army, same hand signals, same pointy shooty over talky desky. All I've gotta do is point to the radio and make a cat's claw and he reads me.

"Ocelot?" I cock my head; listening. "You want to know about Ocelot. Hm."

He's got the most careful hands... Him massaging your feet? Yeah, I could just about come right there...

Uh, I mean: "He's my oldest friend." He shakes his head like a shrug. "We met in the USSR. As enemies. He was just a kid back then. Nothing like the man he is today."

He gives me the Cliff's Notes of Operation Snake Eater. Turns out 'nothing like the man he is today' is the same level of understatement as 'the Soviets made a few changes to the Aral Sea' - apparently 19-year-old Ocelot was a chronically bumbling dipshit who didn't know how to use his own gun and who only wasn't arrested for gross incompetence because his one-up was even worse, however that's possible. The boss seems to think it's cute. Kid Ocelot liked horses and cowboys and torture and criminal insubordination, how sweet.

Yeah, no, I knew the boss wasn't all there from the start. I stopped questioning shit like this ages ago. Not that I could if I wanted to.

Long and short of it is: oh yeah, the kid's a spy commando! I sort of point to him, put two hands together, walking away: 'when did Ocelot leave the GRU spetsnaz and start following you?' Vague I know, but I told you, he reads me. This is Big Boss's shtick, after all. He picks up interesting soldiers from around the globe to add to his collection.

But the boss just looks confused again. Shakes his head. Negative.

Hahaha yeah, for fucking real: turns out Ocelot never left. Not only is he still a GRU major, but the boss _knows_ he is. The boss, and presumably Miller, know he's a fucking spy and always have. Now I'm wondering: did _we_ know?

Him and Miller were our number two and three targets for years. I mean, obviously. It's not that hard to kill a guy - at least it's not _supposed_ to be - but just ramming your car into one of them in bad traffic would've been pointless. The whole deal was they knew where Big Boss was. They had to be captured. Watched. That's a barrel of fish with kevlar.

They never slipped up badly enough to let us do it. Not once. Not in nine goddamn years. Miller had some kind of agreement with the Eritrean government to prevent us from massing troops; Ocelot vanished like a deadbeat dad who owes his baby mama child support every time he stepped into an airport. We infiltrated them twice and got sweet, fuck, and all.

But hey! That's way less embarrassing now that I know that Ocelot's a Soviet secret agent. That sure would've been good to know before! And like they say: if you love something, find somebody to pay you for it, and never work another day in your life - Ocelot's translated his torture fetish into into being the GRU's top interrogator and is so good at it they contract him out to the KGB and labour camps. Nice! He's clearly a very responsible, trustworthy dude.

You know how, once something's been seen, it can't be unseen? Forced labour camps, eh. Where you can't escape and they beat you if you don't work and lock you in a cell if you resist and you have to earn their trust to go anywhere. Full of POWs?

Hahah yeah. Don't get me wrong, a lot of volunteers in the late stage, sure, and the Diamond Dogs weren't starved to death or lined up and shot for escape attempts. Ocelot is too fucking good at his job for that. Intimidation tactics are all well and good until someone decides to fight back - or more likely, run. No, you buy flies with money. "Positive reinforcement is much more effective than negative reinforcement" - or was it positive punishment? Oh fuck I don't know I dropped out of school the second they'd expel me for delinquency. Ocelot explained the difference to me once.

See, this is late-stage culture war early Perestroika. The Soviet "recruits" are all itching to get their hands on shit the censors won't allow, get paid in USD, see parts of the world their own government won't let them. It's simple: they're MIA, POWs, they can't be punished, they might never get a chance to see the world like this again. It's temporary, Ocelot promises - actually for most of them it was, they got ditched as soon as they weren't useful anymore. Safe to catch and release because they know damn well what Ocelot is and they know if they breath a word about it they'll never see the light of day again from the basement of the Lubyanka. They'd all been dragged away from their homes and villages and out to the front in Afghanistan, anyway.

Now for the Mujahideen? We're talking the smell of sweet, sweet First World wages. Get paid more than your village makes in a year in a month with the Diamond Dogs. Do your time, go home, give your eighteen kids a chance to die of something other than cholera. Added bonus: kill Soviet soldiers, which you were doing anyway. But now with health care!

The PFs, those were the ones who actually gave a shit about the Legend. You hit rock bottom, your criminal record is finally so bad your own country won't hire you, and now you're stuck working for Conflict McDonalds. Then you're captured in a hostile takeover by KFC, only in this scenario Colonel Sanders is a famous war hero. All they really needed to do to win the hearts and minds of mercenaries was give them a ten percent pay raise.

This is _classic_ spook shit. Classic CIA, classic post war KGB after they finally figured out that they kept informants longer with less stick, more carrot. It worked for, probably like, 95% of the people the boss captured. Sheer peer pressure, intimidation, mind games for like another 4% - this, _this_ is where Ocelot worked his magic, not the flashy 1984 sideshow downstairs. It was in "convincing" new recruits in the brig and maintaining the "morale" of each division.

I can't say for sure, but matching names permanently in the brig on paper to empty cells, I'm pretty sure the other 1% got a free ticket back to Africa departing from Mother Base's diving board.

Why is this important? Well this is me realizing everything is bullshit, like I said. The boss takes it for granted that men are going to line up to get punched out of his sheer charisma or something. That he needs to play peacemaker between Ocelot and Miller and 'oh you two never get along' when they were business partners for a fucking decade who built a billion-dollar private military enterprise from scratch together. Miller got unhooked from Cipher's nipple back in '75 just like we did - they earned every red cent.

Ocelot's half-baked interrogations over shit that he as a Soviet officer would already know about? A production for the boss. While he and Miller Skinner box him into doing whatever they want with a good-cop, bad-cop routine honed to professional perfection. I'm sitting here listening to the boss use adjectives like calm, gentle, and even-tempered for a man who could make half of Mother Base piss themselves with a single frown.

So the next time Ocelot shows up with his smirk and a new tape for his stereo I give his jaw the day off. Fold my arms. I'm done being played like a sucker. If he cuts me off, well, fuck it. I'll start jilling off right in front of the rest of my guards. What's Miller going to do about it - cry and masturbate? I'm sure that's his every other Tuesday.

"Oh? Not the mood?" Only in Russian. Which is weird. Like I said he knows I speak it, but...

...Yeah, damn. Holy shit. Nobody else on the medical platform does. It's intel that's Little Moscow. He's cutting them out. Cutting Miller out, by extension. Sure the boss reads me loud and clear but Ocelot's hamster wheel breaks the sound barrier sometimes. One gesture and he knows what I know. What I want.

'I want in,' is what I want to say, and I'm thinking of a way to gesture _that_ when he asks: "You want to speak to us, but you don't want to write anything down because that could be used against you. I respect that."

Uhhhh sure. That was totally the plan there.

"Signing seems like a reasonable compromise." As if teaching that to me won't be hundreds or thousands of hours of work. As if there's anything in it for him. As if the fact that he knows how goes without saying. Wouldn't _making_ me write be the better play? 

I hate this shit.

"Which language?"


	3. Chapter 3

I don't know about you, but I'm not deaf, and up until a couple months I could talk - I guess I could still have talked it just wouldn't end well for anybody - so I had no idea that there were a couple dozen sign languages. And that they didn't have to match the 'home' language everybody was speaking around them. That American Sign Language and British Sign Language were completely different things.

I was under the impression that like, of course I'm going to learn American Sign Language, American English is the lingua franca of Mother Base. Because of our monolingual glorious leader.

Yeah, yeah, I know. But the boss doesn't.

Ocelot knows British Sign Language, though, and I'm so past even questioning this shit at this point. He could speak Swahili Sign Language and I wouldn't even blink. But no worries! We'll learn ASL together.

Now I know I'm not the _smartest_ girl in the room - the smartest girl in the room is the neurotic one at the back of the class with bad hair who acts like a virgin but you just fucking know shlicks it to insects or some shit - but goddamn will trying to learn something alongside Ocelot make you feel like a vapid piece of sweater meat in a hurry. He reads shit once and remembers it forever. I'm telling myself it's easier for him because he already knows the theory, but that should mean he gets his signals crossed all the time, right?

He doesn't. We start with the ABCs of sign language and in a couple weeks he's interpreting presidential speeches while I'm struggling to string a sentence together. And the smug, patronizing fuckhead knew it was coming, too - that's the worst part. He has 'lesson plans' prepared, because he knew he'd be at War and Peace while I was on Jack and Jill Went Up The Hill.

Oh yeah, he also stops talking to me at this point. For good. Because it'll help me practice, _obviously_. If I don't recognize a word he'll spell it out for me.

/I-m-m-e-r-s-i-o-n is the fastest means of language a-c-q-u-i-s-i-t-i-o-n/

I'm not saying I didn't maybe grind his face into that bench a little harder than I needed to a few times.

So, stop holding your breath, here's what he wanted from me in return: to be his enforcer. If you were starting to think this was some kind of selfless charity act - well, I mean at this point I'd have to ask you how it feels to have your head shoved up your colon. Not his hired hockey goon to loom behind him and crack my knuckles, somebody to phase out and punch dicks through the floor.

You see, sometimes it felt like I was living in a whole different universe when the boss wasn't on base.

All that spook chicanery I told you about needs cold, hard cash to grease the wheels, and sometimes in the early days that was in short supply. Miller really blew his load on his tricked-out oil rig and with the boss a one-man, one-dog army the bills added up pretty quick. The Diamond Dogs by choice got outnumbered by the Diamond Dogs by Fulton and for every loyal-to-the-death follower the boss had there were five more who'd just as happily slit his throat if Cipher paid them. One riot gone wrong is all it'd take to topple the two guys in charge and see them hung from a crane. Not that that's a bad end for Zero's former come and currency dumpster but I doubt the boss'd appreciate it much.

Sure, the boss came back when he could to throw a few punches, but how do you think shit got settled whenever he wasn't around?

All right, all right, a lot of Ocelot's eyes and ears everywhere was legit old fashioned gossip circles and rummaging through everyone's shit. But with me he can literally see behind locked doors and hear private conversations. I'm in the room when some Mujahideen morons plot to stage a fight so they can stab the command staff, I'm throwing my weight behind Ocelot's punches so he can do a little role reversal with those Soviet bears when they decide they're done taking orders from a twink. Before long everybody's convinced he's some kind of sorcerer: sees all, knows all, can sack a guy without even turning around.

What? No. No way. Miller wasn't in on any of it. No way he'd have let me off my leash. See, Miller had his people, the medics and the desk jockeys, and Ocelot had operational staff--

Wow. Ok, so, here's your Guide To Running A Military Installation for Dummies: 'operational staff' are deployable people. The pew pew and the boom boom. The tip of the spear, in douchebag jarhead terms. The business end of the Diamond Dogs. The way they had it structured, that was creatively named 'Combat' division - hey, like 75% of these people are ESL, simple words man - the 'Intelligence' division, and what passed for the DD air force, the pilots of their handful of tactical helos. 'Support' staff are the people who feed, clothe, heal, supply, move - and usually fuck, let's be honest, it's safer to fuck the support staff if you're combat pers and vice versa so you're not counting on your jaded ex for covering fire - those people. Lastly you've got the brass, command and control. Which was nominally the boss and his XO but was in fact more like a figurehead, the guy who ran the place, and the guy manipulating the guy who ran the place. 90% of the time the boss didn't command shit. He dicked around on his iDroid and moved people around every once in a while. Then Ocelot and Miller moved them back. 'Hey you have enough material for a new platform - wanna build it?' without any 'no I'd rather go to Thailand spend it on hookers and blow' button.

Ocelot's actual position? Head of the Intelligence division. And 'tactical instructor'. No more authority than the head of Base Development in theory, in practice he ran the whole operational side of the business. Call it nepotism for being the boss's bestie, but it was more like the other way around.

No, Miller had like a couple years in Japan's national guard and a single tour in South America twelve years ago, and Ocelot's an active duty special fucking forces major, of course he didn't.

Kinda got off topic here, but what I'm trying to say is, combat people are Ocelot People. And combat people guard my cell. Yep, that's my doggie treat for being such a good girl: they'll look the other way if I want to head out and stretch my legs. Take a few pot shots at dolphins. Piss in Miller's coffee. Fuck me if it doesn't work, though. It's nice to not have somebody staring at you 24/7.

I'm actually allowed to leave the cell at this point if one of the commanders is around. Which means either the boss or Ocelot - don't question it, nobody else did. But everybody knows I'm out and is on their best behaviour. I don't sniff out any dirt that way.

On my own I catch people smuggling, plotting, skiving, nailing their best friend's girl - all-new blackmail for Ocelot's extortion gig. I hear Miller whine about the way the boss fucks him then go cry in the shower, see him lose his shit when some drunk Russian hits on him in the stairwell. Threaten to shoot him then shudder there in a pathetic pile of week-old suit wool for like half an hour. Of course offering to help gets me nothing but GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME BITCH. Hah, like you were the one who pushed him down the stairs with your cripple cane. Sure.

Oh I think Ocelot had to sedate him and carry him back to his room or something. I didn't give a shit. Not my problem.

Sometimes, though, I see Ocelot just... stand there. Like he doesn't understand where he is. Like he's an Alzheimer's patient escaped from the home who doesn't know what to do with his newfound freedom. He mutters to himself and snaps out of it pretty quick, and it only happens when he's alone, but it's kind of unnerving to see the guy who sniffs everybody's dirty laundry try to open a door that isn't there three or four times.

Let's call this, uh, backstory for how Ocelot and I took our relationship to the next level of platonic fuckbuddy.

So that night Ocelot is my parole officer, only less balding, fat, and life-tired than any parole officer I've ever had, and way more fun to hit on. We've climbed up somewhere Miller can't - well, I mean if we 'climbed' anywhere it's somewhere Miller can't get to - outside R&D so he can drink and I can shoot. The boss is back, so Miller's probably busy anyway. I can still taste second-hand CQC on his fingertips when Ocelot hands me magazines.

See the boss's default loadout is non-lethal unless he knows for sure we're fighting giant robots, so I haven't fired anything with a kick in weeks. Getting rusty. Ocelot puts his own hundred hours in a month, so he feels me. Sets up some kind of special range with fast-moving targets just for me because he can't understand why, if I can see rotor blades spinning, I still take forever to line up a shot. And I'm like, well, that's because I'm a professional. One hit, one kill. A well-oiled machine that turns out headshots on an assembly line of craftsman quality death from above.

And he's like, ha ha that's cute. The boss doesn't have time for an artisanal lead chastity belt when russkis are trying to fuck him in the ass. Primadonna snipers are the worst.

\--What, _no_ that's not an exact quote. What the fuck. Does that sound like an exact quote to you?

Okay I'll try not to paraphrase, but, it was something like, "The processing speed of your sensory signals has been decreased"--remember he's signing this to me--"but you have the same ratio of fast twitch muscle that'll only increase with training." Which I don't get him to spell out or repeat, because it's boring as fuck and I don't care.

What I am thinking is, it's put up or shut up time, bitch. At this point I don't even think he can climax without a pair of revolvers. I've seen him do his trick shots; whatever, call me when you can do that when somebody's shooting at you. When I push my RENOV into his girl hands I am one hundred and ten percent prepared to gloat.

34/35. I got 32. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

He laughs and I'm saying, my groupings were better, one of yours was a non-lethal ricochet, you don't even follow through on your trigger pulls on these bullshots, you won't hit shit past 300 yards like that, suck a dick, and he's like, tsk tsk primadonna snipers eh nothing but excuses.

A couple hours of lazer-focused intensity later I'm 35/35 all headshots and he can eat shit and it occurs to me he just riled me into training out of my comfort zone. He could've just fucking _asked_. Did he really think he'd have to manipulate me into spending the night on my favourite hobby or is it like an automatic reflex for him at this point.

/Why?/ That's a sign I'm getting pretty good at. Pretty good at assuming Ocelot never needs context either.

/Someone once told me that to care about a thing you have to be able to protect it./

Well that's all bassackwards. You can care about somebody without being able to take to the nearest clocktower to pick off the feds if they get caught cheating on their taxes or something. Besides, what the fuck is that supposed to mean? If I care about the boss, I should watch his six - no shit, Sherlock. Or is he training me to do it because _he_ cares about the boss...

Nope, nope, nope. Not going to spend the evening commiserating about being roommates in the Friend Zone.

So I make gun-spinny hands and point to the rifle with my head cocked questioningly, and he's like /Use your words, Quiet/.

/Not a r-e-v-o-l-v-e-r?/

/No, it's not a revolver./ Insert smirk. /Believe it or not, I use other weapons when appropriate. Pistols used to be my go-to, back in the day./

I want to ask him when exactly he thinks its 'appropriate' to use a handgun with a manual reload aside from overcompensation for a much smaller concealed carry, but that'll take me like an hour to fumble out at this juncture, so instead I ask: /Why those?/ And point. Yeah he's just shown me the word for revolver but I'll look stupid.

/The revolvers?/ Repeating it because he thinks I'm slower than Miller trying to tie his shoeloaces. /A gift from the man I love./

Okay, wasn't expecting him to drop the l-bomb, but hey, it's sure as shit out there now.

I'm thinking, why the fuck does the boss make garbage life choices. He could've picked this one. I'd ride the tricycle with this one. Miller barely even showers anymore - he looks and smells like burger grease.

/Snake was the one who suggested them to me. I know they're not the most practical weapon in the world, but I enjoy them. Make me think of him./ And here I would've guessed they completed his cowboy ensemble, but what do I know.

/Cool./ They are, kind of. Custom-made .45s that fire shot, proprietary Diamond Dogs tech though you can buy them anywhere in South Africa now, I think. First pair I'd ever seen back in the '80s. Sufficient stopping power for your post-apartheid carjackers, I guess.

/I used to have a pair of 19th Century Single Action Armies. Real antiques. Gave one to Snake.../ Yeah, I could see the cocky toolbag the boss described thumb-cocking one-handed.

He goes kinda quiet though. Uncharacteristic. He loves the sound of his own... hands. I mean I get that giving one to Snake probably means it's giving Caribbean tuna lead poisoning right now. /Kept. One?/

/No. I gave it to.../ He blinks like he doesn't understand the question. /I gave it to.../

Uh oh. I prod him a bit, but that only makes it worse. He's blue-screened on me.

If I kick him will he reboot? Feels wrong kicking somebody having a mental breakdown. I prefer to kick men fully cognizant of their surroundings. He's completely out of it, too. I pick him up by the shoulders and give him a little shake - no recognition.

I'm thinking, oh shit. He is a spook - what if they did the Soviet version of MK-ULTRA on him and now there's a hole in his brain from all the LSD. The boss is off getting his dick wet and I don't want to rat Ocelot out to Miller, he's the only other person here I give two flying fucks about.

Then I tap his cheek, and he starts sucking on my fingers.

Oh boy.

Yeah, I mean, he doesn't know who I am or where he is, but he swallows my index finger licks my palm with the tip of his tongue, opens his mouth wider. Teases my middle finger in too and bobs his head, sucking on them, making little noises in the back of his throat like it's fat juicy cock and he wants it inside him yesterday.

He's all flushed and his nipples look hard, so maybe, maybe I take his shirt off for him, make him a little more comfortable. Nothing. Doesn't even react.

I've been thinking about what he looks like with his shirt off ever since he borrowed my shower.

It's nice. Enough to make you wonder if he's really middle-aged or just a really hard Russian 29 without the Slavic balding pattern. Angular pecs, visible obliques, smooth skin over a taut body that just kinda... gives a little when you touch it, then asks for more.

Yes, I'm feeling him up at this point. So what? He's had his mouth jammed halfway up my cunt I'm sure I'm not giving him cooties.

I can taste his sweat and his cologne when I touch him and shit, I want more. All I usually taste from him is leather and whatever he ate that day; I drink up his whiskey with my tongue, all the propellant dusted across his face and neck and he opens his mouth for me and fuck, yeah, his skin's burning with musk, all that sweat and all those pheromones, I know his dick's hard before I even get his pants off.

Fucking. _Finally_.

It's a pretty nice dick, all things considered. I mean at this point I'm thirsty enough to drink year-old antifreeze, I wasn't expecting to get served champagne. I don't really like champagne, and I prefer cut, but believe me, it's no trouble to roll that foreskin back for you sir, no trouble at all. Nicely sized. Not that much girth but a nice fat head so it'll stretch your slit on the way out, the kind you _do_ want to thrust a li--

What, you don't need this level of detail? You're the one asking me to kiss and tell.

Mm, yeah, gets nice and swollen and red when I give it a pump, and fuck, how long has it been since I last heard a man _moan_? Too long. Way too long. Ocelot, well, he looks like he likes it, not really _focused_ but his lips are parted dark and he _clearly_ wants this.

Did I mention he's shaved? Like a straight up porn star. I'm thinking, ha ha _wow_ , because when he spreads his legs for me he's smooth all the way to the asshole. Which at first I'm a little hesitant to touch, because believe me, when you taste and smell with your fingers the last thing you want to do is fondle the collateral shit shrapnel on some guy's taint. But I'm curious, and damn, _damn_ \- he's _clean_. Freshly showered and scrubbed out on the inside and oh fuck me, he was expecting to get fucked tonight. By who, I don't know - anybody, plenty of cock fans in the military, couple of hot intel guys in their 20s or maybe he likes them mature, maybe he'd like the boss to spread him and pound him and--

Whoa whoa whoa slow down girl, last time you got this horny you got into a four-way on the hood of an MP's patrol car. He's ready, though. Jesus fuck, he's ready. His back arches right up for my fingers.

Sure sticking your finger up a guy's ass when he's about to nut is so basic 12-year-olds read about in Cosmopolitan, and I've had some good reactions, but I've never had one beg for it with everything but words. His rim relaxes enough to let another one in right away. His cock twitches. He shifts, giving me more room to go deeper, and when I curl my fingers up nice and tight he rocks with my hand in a slow rhythm that feels like it would be an amazing fuck.

He's still got that lost, dead-eyed look in his eyes, like I'm fingerbanging a hooker through her heroin overdose. Which is a buzzkill.

I roll him over onto his stomach.

There we go, that's nice. If I'm going to cockblock him for the evening by being a fussy bitch about hit percentages the least I can do is put out. 

His asshole is so clean you could eat out of it. Which, like, I _could_ I realize and he. Fucking. Sighs. This pitched, gasping sigh, like no, don't when I pull my fingers out and rub his throbbing dick with them. Get down between his cheeks and lick up soap and sweat. Get him as nice and wet as I am. Push my tongue in there, and - nah, it's nowhere near as long as his.

I make him swallow my fingers again before I shove three of them in there. His prostate is so swollen I can _feel_ it, no probing around and wondering if he's one of those guys who hates it, Ocelot loves it, and he loves it when I finger fuck him hard.

There's a fucking _puddle_ of precum under his leaking dick, no joke. He starting to cry out a little, drool a little, buck his hips a little, and then he _bites_ his fucking _glove_ to keep quiet and looks back at me like, I want you to fuck me so bad, and yeah if this was ten years later my next Lycos search would be 'size large strap-on'.

Now that puddle looks like my pussy feels. I desperately need some kind of relief but I don't want to roll him over and use his dick, I want to see if he can seriously come like this because right now it looks like an 80% chance of precipitation and while I've heard about it, sure, I've never seen it in real life before. 

That and this is way hotter than I expected it to be. So I sort of ground down against him, which is where it's good that he's not a big guy. If I humped the boss it'd look like a cat fucking a dog, this just looks like a cat fucking a cat. Yeah, Ocelot's tall, but he's skinny, and I could probably hold him down like this even without parasite steroids.

That feels way better than I was expecting, too - Ocelot doesn't just lay there, he grinds back and shifts so that the grip of one of his _revolvers_ is digging into my clit and when he reaches back with his other hand to let me slide it into my slit it tastes and smells like the _boss_ \--

So yeah I fucked him into the ground. He absolutely did come without me touching his cock, which is only fair, because I think I came about three damn times before that. There were jagged red circles from the steel scaffold all over his hips and chest.

Damn, though. He still barely recognizes me and gets lost halfway down the platform. It takes him almost an hour to snap out of it - I get him dressed, take him back to his room, clean him up. Nobody comes by. He mutters to himself a bunch in the shower and when he comes out he says. "Must've drunk a little more than a thought," like an apology.

Out loud.

Starting to wonder, was that all bullshit too, or is there something seriously wrong with him?

Is that why he can't protect the boss anymore?


	4. Chapter 4

So you're probably wondering: if I could 'talk', why the fuck didn't I just tell Ocelot about the Kikongo strain instead of jumping down some random dude's throat trying to rip out his voice box? First you should ask yourself: why the fuck you didn't wonder why I didn't _write it down_ before? There's not a cunt hair's chance on a porn star the CIA's best frenemy's going to hire an illiterate operative. Shit, even if I was, why not just draw a picture?

Look, when you've been in as much combat as I have, you learn to react to a potentially lethal threat with all possible force. People who don't learn that are dead people. Yeah, sure, the DD'd started taking jobs in Africa, so it stood to reason the boss'd misappropriate somebody who spoke Kikongo eventually, but I'm a fucking dumbass I guess and I didn't really think about it until I overheard somebody doing the linguistic equivalent of blindfiring into to a crowd of friendlies. You know what you do when some braindead boot starts lazing everybody at the range? You tackle his ass. (Or her ass. Not saying I've been tackled.)

I tackled his ass and tried to 'disarm' him. You know, vocally. Before he could do any more harm. It was instinct - if you thought it was all part of some grand plan to get my message across without words, 1) you're a moron, see: I could've fucking drawn it, 2) no, I was just trying to prevent a catastrafuck.

Anyway so even if it was part of a grand plan Commander Cashslut is too durr hurr hurr argh Cipher argh to clue in on it - he doesn't even _ask_ , christ - and I still have no means to communicate with the boss, so thank god somebody calls mom to wipe everyone's assholes. Which is to say I'm dragged off to time out in Ocelot's sadism showroom.

He takes his sweet time getting down there, which makes me reflect on what a fuckup I am, because now I've got nothing better to do. My old boss knew I might defect. Why the fuck hadn't I thought of that until it started teabagging me in the face? You know him - or maybe I guess you probably don't, actually - but he's, like, a CIA mastermind fucked a KGB assassin they pumped out a Bond villain. Fuck, maybe that was part of his plan all along. If nothing else he'd sure as shit have a failsafe built in, in case I did. Plant a few juicy infected Kikongo speakers in sight of the boss's binoculars, ripe for the picking. Leaving me with the choice of either proving I'm on their side by cooperating with them or letting the chitchat plague wipe them all out. Either way, he wins. Double wins if I have to resort to English to do it.

I guess he didn't figure I'd be in communication with one of them already, behind everybody's backs. Which it occurs to me, then: _nobody_ outplays my old boss. Nobody. Not even Cipher himself. Definitely not some cocksucking special forces honey trap nearing his expiration date with a sad schoolgirl crush on the world's deadliest patsy.

_Then_ it occurs to me: jesus tapdancing christ, I've _defected_. To the _Diamond Dogs_. That old locker room joke we used to tell each other when we had too much duct tape holding our flak vests together on our eighth-straight day of dipping decade-old C-Rations in cup noodles - in the bad old days of the late '70s just after Cipher took away XOF's allowance for doing what he didn't have sack to. Don't like it? Why not defect to the Diamond Dogs? Kaz Miller'll give you head as a hiring incentive - after all, your spunk and slime is all he's got to eat.

Now I'm living the joke. _I'm_ a joke: if my old boss is a Bond villain, I'm the femme fatale who swaps sides for a taste of the protagonist's d, only I'm not even getting the d.

Yeah, that's right, this grown-ass woman staring down the barrel of 30 is throwing herself a pity party. If my internal organs hadn't been charbroiled in an acetone marinade I'd chock it up to an impending shark week. Come to think of it, I do feel like frozen Christmas ham during a mid-July black out. What gives?

Then it hits me: this place is hermetically-sealed. Positive pressure. Red light only, which the parasites find about as nutritious as licking asphalt. My skin's dried out completely. I'm a plant with the metabolism of a T. Rex and every minute down here is dragging me further into an LA tar pit. Ocelot'll open that door and there'll be nothing but black ooze and frappuccinos, as far as the eye can see. 

Oh yeah, definitely. Hallucinating, loopy. I've never been in here for more than an hour, before. Pretty sure he left me overnight. It's worse than anything they've done to me up to this point. I'm like, fuck I could actually _die_ from this. And he didn't even lay a finger on me. Like most people I'm not really looking to die, you know? The most miserable, shitty, lingering death I can imagine because at this point the parasites are too starved to let me heal, let alone phase through the walls to freedom. I've waited too long because they've - _he's_ \- got me conditioned to think of this as harmless foreplay. That the worst that's coming to me is whatever futile bitchslap Miller comes up with that week. I've fucked myself bareback.

By the time Ocelot finally shows his pointy face that mold-riddled, mushy, half-thawed ham is my spirit animal. The puff of moisture in the air he walks in with when the door opens is an eyedropper's worth of water in the Sahara - he's sipping out of a canteen and I would straight up strangle him for it if I could get out of my chair.

Now I told you he was smirking like he was about to nut when he gave me and Huey a little bad touch, right? Make no mistake: I am literally fucking dying here in a toilet bowl full of misery stew and now, now he looks like he's about to get to the part where always rewinds in a full course feast of his favourite porno. He's showing teeth - it's the closest I've come to making his dick twitch without my fingers up his asshole and--

Shit, yeah. It's kind of hot, actually.

/Sorry about the wait./ There's something about the way he moves his hands that makes you hear that drawl in them. /Had a few bad cases of something we must've caught in Africa to take care of. But you wouldn't know anything about that, would you?/

Miller's got all kinds of recording devices in here. They don't mean jack shit when Ocelot and I talk. And the lights are too low for cameras. It's the first time I've been alone with anybody in here, and I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine Ocelot locking that door behind him. 

This is off the record.

/It's been isolated, for the moment./ Has it? Seriously? The vocal chord parasite isn't exactly your average family medicine; the idea of spreading disease through languages seemed fucking batshit the first time I heard it. Have they mistaken it for something endemic to a particular region, or - holy shit - did the GRU know what we were up to all along? Let it slide because our enemies were their enemies? Don't get me wrong: XOF wasn't even urinal talk between the president and the DCI back then, but the GRU and KGB are the largest, most active intelligence services in the world at the time. Maybe somebody slipped up, nailed the wrong Russian. I mean, relatable.

I've got no idea, because - being brutally honest here - it's not like I can read his tells when his wet lips are making me salivate. So's the bulge of his throat when he swallows. I'm desiccating like a dead bug on the windshield and he's chugging away. Little drop of water escapes from his mouth and drips down the side of it to his jaw and he doesn't even wipe it away.

And here I am, too weak to break out. Of a _rope_ , of all the unprofessional horseshit to tie someone up with. Ropes stretch. Give. You're guaranteed to struggle out of them eventually. Professionals use handcuffs and zip ties. All I can do is moan and thump my chair around.

He's loving it. He pulls an iDroid of his own out from his man-cleavage and turns it on for me. Flips to a new page called "Quarantine". "He might not be well-educated, but Snake is one of the most intelligent men I've ever known."

Later, sure, I'll see the freehand epidemiological case methods the boss used to figure it out. Logarithms. Doesn't ping for me; I'm a high school dropout myself. Maybe he really is just that smart. But at least I question it - my head might be up my ass, but Miller's is damn near tasting his own breakfast.

The time stamp shows that it took him about five minutes.

Well, fuck. 

"I don't suppose you'd know something about this, would you?" He swipes something and holds it out for me. My head's swimming like I've just done ten shots of tequila, but I can still make out a Cyrillic keypad, or the holographic image of one anyway, and the rest is a blank space.

So this is it. This is where I make the choice. All that other bullshit was mopey pre-prom angst about not having the hottest dress; now I'm in the back of the Cadillac with a condom in one hand and a tissue in the other - I'm fucked, either way. Do I refuse to put out and let him watch me fuck myself - yeah, he'll stand there and watch me die, no doubt about it. Aw shucks, he'll say, couldn't be helped Boss, and Miller'll piss on my grave. Maybe my old boss'll come through. Maybe the Diamond Dogs'll be one big pile of corpses on the side of the road like the rest. 

Or do I give him his handjob? Make no mistake: I tell them how to get Code Talker - who already wants to defect - they'll come up with a cure for it, and every goddamn thing me and my crew toiled, sweat, and stabbed for in Africa is so much jizz down the drain. 

I don't know. 

He's just standing there. Waiting. Watching me squirm. You look at his face and he could be some waiting for the bus, but you look at his _eyes_ , and they light up like I'm about to rip open that condom after all, every time he takes sip and I can _taste_ the moisture in the air and I moan like a little bitch. Dying sucks ass. At least when I was on fire I lost consciousness before I pancaked on the sidewalk.

I don't know how long this lasted. Hours, maybe. A day. I dunno. Forever. I think, like, maybe, _maybe_ he'll finish that canteen and call it off. But he _pulls out another one_ and starts drinking that too, tosses the other one across the room and a little spray from the cap splashes on my cheek and it's just enough to make it a hundred times worse. Like giving somebody on a hunger strike a single fucking almond. Just enough to get the stomach juices burning a hole in your gut again.

Shit. 

/You know/ This might be paraphrased, because I'm so fucked up right now his fingers leave little red tracers. Red fingers, red light. /You and I aren't enemies./

I'd like to tell him to skip the small talk, torture's not a bonding experience - well not for me anyway, oh boy do I ever know I don't speak for everybody - but my hands are, haha, tied.

That's when it hits me. Just as everything starts to go black. That wasn't an olive branch. That was a threat. He likes me, so he'll sit here and watch me shrivel up. If he didn't, who knows. Give me salt water tattoos. Boil my eyeballs in chemicals. Give me just enough of that water to keep this going for weeks.

Everything I've been told about the Diamond Dogs is wrong. 

The MSF - conflict reject Disneyland, the Legendary Soldier's midlife crisis, whatever the fuck that was - stood no chance of shaking up the world order, all they ever did was get played. My old boss was right of about them. But how am I any different? Doing what I'm told. On a whim and a dream, looking to get used by somebody with bigger and better ideas. I'm just another sack of meat he's stuffed a bomb inside to get back at his boyhood hero. I mean nothing to him.

My new boss has no reason to trust me, and I'm the bullet between him and a bodybag every other mission. He strips and cleans his weapons outside my cell, humming my song. Has pictures of me up in his office. Finds new tapes for me so I won't get bored.

We've never even had a conversation.

Is he a sucker too? Who knows. I'm not. And I'll gun down anybody who tries what Cipher pulled on him. What my old boss pulled. 

Yeah, I'm not dying for somebody else's philosophy. 

I nod, make noises, try and let him know I'm gonna talk - but he knows. I'm sure he's got enough of the people he's broken in his spank bank collection. Doesn't matter. He unties me. I give him what he wants. Everything I know. Misspell every word - he let me read it later, it's modern fucking art, trust me - but it's enough. I've turned. He knows it.

He holds the second canteen out for me, like 'good girl, here's your treat.' Unscrews it. 

And pours it out on the floor.

In my proudest moment ever, I find the strength to tumble out of that chair and try to grab it before it all seeps through the grates.

Hah, yeah, that sick fucker's laughing. Doesn't even sound like him. Or maybe that's just me.

Joke's on him - I still managed to rub enough of it onto my skin the parasites have some life back in them, and so do I. He doesn't see it coming when I grab his belt--

No shit. You've figured out I have problems with impulse control.

It's been fucking _hours_. I know exactly where all that water is. I'm not dying here. 

I mean, shit, when he realizes what I want he gets his dick out _for_ me. Probably thinks I'm going to beg for it. I am on my hands and knees here. I even give it a little lick to get him going. Just the tip. He dribbles a tiny little bit of piss out, over my chin and, fuck it, it's mostly water.

I hit him in the gut just about four inches above his dick. As hard as I can.

That starts the waterworks. Remember, I've still got his dick in my hand. He's not going anywhere. And it's a little like drinking water you had milk in the night before and didn't wash out - it's just _off_ \- but I've got about as much room to be choosy as the last guy at a bar in an army town. It's getting into my hair and soaking my gitch and even a little in my boots; shit, I could roll in it. 

He's getting into it. Sighs that sigh everybody does when they've been holding it for ages and from him it's erotic, like I'm buried up to the third knuckle in his ass again and he wants me to fuck him bad. I even let him put his cock in my mouth. Pretend to swallow.

He doesn't realize how fucked he is until I toss his revolvers across the room.

I'm untied; reconstituted, and all alone behind closed doors with the asshole who almost killed me. 

He tries to go for the door, but sweetheart, you've got no fucking prayer. I could break him in half right now. Slip right through his forearm when he tries to block me. I grab him and pick him up by scarf and slam him down on his back on his own workbench. 

If I have to drink piss tonight, so does he.

Even if he wasn't gasping to get air back into his lungs, I'm strong enough to pry his jaws right open. He doesn't like it. He really doesn't like it. I make him swallow every drop. Hand on his throat so I can feel it. Give it a nice little rub because turnabout is fair play.

He's still pissing himself when I start jerking his half-hard dick--

What do you mean, 'why'? Why _not_? 

I've got him writhing and bucking on his own torture table and the low lights in here make him look even better. I want to fuck him and he does _not_ want that, oh no. Wouldn't be my first hatefuck but it is my first hate handjob, way easier than I was expecting. Every time he tries to struggle away I just dig my nails in. Well, I kind of have to anyway, his cock's coated in piss and precum. Like, so slippery I can't even hold it in my gloved hand.

Like I said, turnabout is fair play, and when I climb up onto that table and straddle him he looks at me like I'm holding a pair of wire-cutters to his nutsack. Like my cunt is a loaded gun to his head. Relax, babe, this won't hurt you. Much?

He drew it out, so I draw it out: just grip his shaft and press that thick, dripping tip up against my clit. Rub it with that, like he's my moist, uncooperative human dildo. There's sweat pooling on his chest and oh boy does he ever not want this. I've still got my panties on - I pull his whole cock between my thighs and up against my snatch, into the very, very open open folds of my slit and grind down on him, like one of those Japanese porn game shows where they have two people thigh fuck with a single piece of saran wrap between them. Two people who really shouldn't fuck, like stepsiblings. 

What, you've never watched one of those? Ocelot bought some tapes for Miller, I think - I hope - it was a joke, but we got wasted and watched them all in the mess on movie night--

Yeah, anyway, it always breaks. And they're so horny they don't stop, they just keep going, and when his dick kind of pops around fabric and yanks those fishnets up into my hole I don't stop either. It's kind of sad, now that I think about it. Was hot as hell at the time. He got maybe two inches in and it probably took me twenty goddamn minutes but I wasn't in the mood to strip, I was in the mood to watch him squirm.

Actually, I got off before he did. He's a puddle of sweat and he's shivering and his dick's throbbing so hard it's got to hurt and he looks just delicious but he hasn't blown his load.

Nah, as soon as I'm done swearing and shuddering he _grins_.

See, there are all kinds of weapons, probes, jumper cables, you name it on that table he could've defended himself with. Might not have worked, but he didn't even try. Because he's got that iDroid in one hand, and he turned my gibberish into intel, putting it all in the name of some rando the boss captured. Sent it off to somebody while I was riding him.

That's when I realize: I could've killed him at any time. Even when I was tied up. Coming in alone, the pressure seal, the locked door - with one word, I could've doomed us both. Didn't even occur to me.

What a way to go. Locked in a room alone with somebody who hates you, wasting away. Take days. The boss on the other side of that door. Miserable. Just one word of English. 

He came in here dragging his titanium cojones, prepared to die to turn me. With a shit-eating smile.

Some background players, they do it because they can't handle the heat in the kitchen. Others do it because they could, only they better serve the cause this way. 

Now I know which one he is. Now I know where his loyalties are. Now he knows mine. Nah, we're not enemies. And no hard feelings - I got mine.

Yeah, I like this guy. After this, I even let him use my shower. Let him jerk off to one of my hot guards.

He tells Miller I didn't talk. 

It's true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you ever wondered why it doesn't matter if you kill the human trafficker who supposedly gives you Code Talker's location, well, now you know ;p


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minor references to [this](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8047849) and [this](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8777215/chapters/21455009).

I mean, yeah, you're right, it wasn't all anal fingering and golden showers. That cleared the air a bit though like the way punching somebody in the face when they're getting on your nerves does, or carving your initials into somebody's back when you're sick of them feeling you up with their knife all the time. Either they'll hit back and you'll respect them or they'll lay there and take it and they'll respect you.

The boss started taking me on pretty much all his missions around that point. Horse seems pointless when they deploy you with a vehicle and as much as Miller might mouth off about it, it doesn't cost as much as you're raking in. I mean yeah, you guessed it: most DD funds didn't come from the boss picking wildflowers across the Afghan countryside. They came from our other ops. The ones the boss had nothing to do with, or his other contracts.

What? Why wouldn't we? Doesn't seem like we'd get paid to nurse Miller's personal grudge against XOF? You're not thinking this through. Sure the DD had a lot of enemies, but so did we. Only they were scared shitless of us - I mean, for good reason. We were a legendary freakshow complete with giant mech who could turn our enemies into zombies. Over and above plucky assholes who love pain and Pripyat chic ghost gingers, biological weapons are just, fucking, terrifying. Always have been. Always will be. They're indiscriminate. You have to be seriously unhinged to use them, or to fight somebody using them. Diamond Dogs sure found out why.

So yeah, when the time came to put a hit on Sally, Miller was probably getting seven figures under the table for it from everybody who'd have a problem with every single town terrorist owning a personal nuke. Which is everybody.

I'm setting the stage here: business is good. I'm not home much. When I am home I'm bored out of my damn mind. Even if I do get out of my cage to write happy birthday in tracer rounds every once in a while being home means the boss is there to make up for lost time through bad gassy post-burger fucks with his angry accountant. And people get twitchy when the "parasite" is playing postal worker in the clock tower on a shipping crane with passing swordfish so I found a little hidey hole to hang out in.

It's a crawl space between two decks and you have to hang off a ladder and kind of swing into it - if you can't teleport - so there's no way Miller's getting in there. Actually I thought you couldn't get in there, at first. It's right below one of the cranes so you can gawk at cargo ships, take in the sun and the sea. Rub one out without half the medical section sprouting wood.

You guessed it: I go down there one day and Ocelot's there already. Smirk and all. I'd drag him out over the edge but... he's got a black eye and a couple other cane-shaped bruises so I figure I'll be generous and let him lay low. Just this once. If he earns his keep with his tongue.

Which he does, so, whatever. He can stay.

I wouldn't say we were 'hanging out'. Just that sometimes he'd be there when I was there. Sometimes he'd do maintenance on his revolvers, sometimes he'd read gun magazines, sometimes books. Sometimes he even naps. Like that one girl in your class you're pretty sure doesn't really like you but comes over to your house to paint her nails in your bedroom while you ignore each other because if she's your 'friend' the popular kids won't pick on her, only with arguably better head. Or something. I don't know what his logic is. It's a good opportunity to practice ASL on the DL, I guess. Why that's still a secret long after I'm on team personality cult for justice, I don't know. He's a weird guy.

I like weird, though. Weird doesn't judge you when you limp home after a bender covered in ants, because you know he gets off on choking himself while he jerks off.

No, no, no not fucking Ocelot. Different guy.

After I hear we're finally throwing down with Sally, though, I decide to make use of our date nights.

I take a pause from my very important task of horking up enough spit to try to hit one of the loadies beneath us and smack his toe with my boot. The worst thing about sign language is you actually have to look at whoever you're talking to. Half the time I look at Ocelot I'm like, what was I thinking. He's a middle-aged six. Seven with alcohol. The other half I want to rip his sorry ass excuse for a shirt off and drag his face between my thighs. Third half is kinda what you always think when you find yourself with a third half: somewhere along the line I've made a terrible mistake.

Anyway, he's completely disassembled my Brennan and is feeling up the greasy firing pin on the neat little cloth he lays out so he doesn't lose any parts, like a gun picnic.

/You. Got location out of H-u-e-y?/

/Sure did./ Right now I'm trying not to think too hard about how he does everything with his gloves on, wondering if it'd be gross or kind of sexy to know what gunoil tastes like. /Base built out of an old Greek c-i-t-a-d-e-l, called O-K-B Zero./

I preface my response with a middle finger: /You. So full of shit./

He just grins back at me. See, ostensibly my first job back for my old boss was to assassinate Soviet officers who took offense to our presence there. Of _course_ the Red Army knew about us, you can't hide two giant robot factories in the middle of a war zone. Ocelot is not only a Soviet officer, he's an _intelligence_ officer. They took Huey from a facility we had the Reds guarding in the first place, and OKB Zero's so close to that you could piss on it from the air. Boss walked right up to the blast doors. What I'm saying is, he knew where we kept Sally this whole damn time, torturing it out of Huey was the lamest dog and pony sideshow I've ever witnessed. Secondhand embarrassment city.

/You think I could have kept Miller--/ Yeah we've got a sign for Miller at this point. /--On his leash if I told him I knew where your home base was from the start? We didn't have the resources to do anything about it. And Snake, well, I might've been able to talk him out of it, but who knows. Love can make men as blind as revenge./

I can't fault that logic. Sure, the boss usually sides with his old buddy, but Miller's the one sucking his dick. See, Ocelot's bullshit usually makes sense, you just have to dig all the way to the bottom.

/Kid, on the helicopter?/ Still shovelling through this particular pile, though. What the fuck is the point of bringing the boss's brat along? On the off chance he gets RPG'd out of the sky as retroactive birth control?

/Like I told Miller, he deserves his chance for payback against Cipher the same as the rest of us./

It'd take a backhoe driven by an archaeologist a lifetime to sift through the layers of horseshit in that sentence. I'm trying to play it cool here. He's staring at me through the chamber bore. Whatever, you're not cute. If I sack him he might drop something important.

/Really boss's kid?/ Because he sure doesn't fucking look like him.

/Of course. Can't you tell?/

/Looks like Miller./

/Maybe he is Miller's./ He's grinning again like he really thinks he's cute. /You ever been in Miller's pants?/

Augh, nasty. Fuck, no. Never.

No, no, I'm getting to the point. Trust me, this is one of the most important conversations we ever have.

See, this has all been foreplay. I can be a clever bitch too, when I want to be. I've figured out he comes down here to read romance novels for dudes and jerk off to gun parts a lot of the time because his LSD brain hole is acting up and he doesn't trust himself to do real work. I can see he's already a little dopey; their cover story is that tween model Jack Merridew is _not_ the boss's kid, based on some made up DNA test.

Here goes nothing: /When you start shooting?/ I'm changing the topic because I'm grossed out by the thought of sex with Miller, right? It's natural. Smooth.

/Oh, eight or so. Ten?/

Bullshit. This guy'd know the day he got his first gun like it was the day he got his v-card punched. /Which?/

He told me pistols used to be his go-to, remember. But that was right before he blue screened on me. I'm going to catch this slippery little fucker in a lie. He's going to tell me it was a Nagant M1895 revolver, or a Colt Navy, or...

/M-a-k-a-r-o-v./ Fuck.

No, wait a minute. Makarovs have a 12-lb trigger pull. That's why I believed the boss's story about Ocelot spinning them in the first place. /M-a-k-a-r-o-v trigger, eight?/ Doesn't seem like he would've been a jacked grade schooler.

This is definitely bullshit. But it's not my kind of fight, I'm so far out of my wheelhouse I'm in the drink, the parasites are squirming and I have to _look_ at him the whole time I'm trying to pull this off. One of our more talky operatives told me that you can tell if somebody's lying if you see their eyes move up to the left when they think about their response. To the right if it's the truth. But that sometimes left-handed people reverse this--or was it the opposite? Near as I can tell, Ocelot's ambidextrous and shit shit shit-- which was it again?

He looks straight _down_. /I had to use both hands./

Oh fuck this. /Can't aim./ Not like that.

He actually, like, _flinches_. Hides his _hands_. It's the most obvious tell I've seen on anybody, anywhere. It's over in a second, but coming from him it's unbelievable.

"No, you're right. First firearm I ever used was a Walther. First I _owned_ was a Makarov."

That's bullshit too. What, a PPK like James Bond? In the USSR? Come on.

/My parents were well-connected./ Why's he lying about this?

But he's done humouring me. He looks back up again and I feel like a toddler taking a swing at a bouncer. This is his game. He's all there again, all locked and loaded, sharper than I've ever seen him. /What about you? Which was the first rifle you ever used?/

Ah, shit. Am I supposed to, uh, lie here? Would it be bad if I told him the truth? Is this some kind of subtle hint to back the fuck off?

Yeah, he's not done. I'm not even half-finished my heart-warming heartland story about a golden retriever and a Remington .22 in my own head before he's like: "Karabiner 98b, was it? That'd be my guess."

And that's the finger pressed to my forehead, letting me know that if I keep swinging, he's going to lay me out. Because he's right. Right down to the motherfucking model.

"You're definitely used to a stripper clip and a down-turned bolt action. And you overcompensate on the last stage of the opening cycle. They fixed it for the 98k but without that retraction the old Mauser rifles would jam."

No way. There's no way. I've definitely bit off more than I can chew, but fuck it, I wind right up and... get bailed out by my boss, as he swings right over the side to join us.

"So this is where you hide from me." Goddamnit this was my secret place. No boys allowed. "If it isn't my two favourite people." All fond smiles and smelling like slut. 

Ocelot transforms from gleaming-eyed wildcat to nuzzling kitten on a _dime_. "Aside from Miller, you mean."

"Of course. Aside from Kaz." Just flops down between the two of us and shatters all the tension. Not quite halfway, closer to me. Because there's not enough room for the three of us, which means he has to touch one, and those two've been playing a hilarisad game of Physical Contact Chicken since I met them. Like both of them think that if they touch, the other will rip his clothes off like Superman and fall directly onto his dick.

But sure, crawl all over me and splay your legs across my ass.

You know what, I'm out of there. Maybe it's petty; I can just sink through the ceiling. The boss looks sad, like he wanted bonding time, but I'm not in the mood. Let's see if they really do bang the second they're alone together. See if I care. None of my business. I hope they do, boss could use the lay.

Son of a bitch, I didn't learn anything except that Ocelot _could_ get tripped up.

I had a good brood at the firing range and shot a bunch of targets in the nuts that night. In the morning everybody's hyped up and ready to roll. Even though it's going to be me and the boss doing all the heavy lifting, Miller's there giving the pep talk. He's there to see the boss off, and sure maybe they don't kiss in front of everybody, but the boss strokes Miller's stubble, so very fucking professionally. Imagine talking to your XO so close that if somebody clipped him from behind, you'd butt heads. (Not saying this happened.)

You guessed it: Ocelot's in there. And he's got my _Brennan_.

You've got to understand, all I've been allowed to use up until this point is my own POS Renov I've been modding and remodding since the 70s, and a glorified dart gun. When we got the specs for a modern anti-materiel rifle _and_ it got added to my gun locker, damn, it was like Christmas. ...And like a new toy with no batteries, there it stayed, unless me or Ocelot took it out to play with it.

/Boss figured you might need something with a little more kick than your pea shooter to take on a building-sized robot./ Which is to say Ocelot figured, which is why it's all tuned up. He's got a pouch full of magazines made for my webbing, too, and before I can ask him why he's playing ammo caddy he pops a cartridge out of one. Brand new brass, freshly primed and crimped. /Saw yesterday that you reinforced the chamber./ For extra flash suppression, sure. Not that I'd ever get to use it. But the boss likes subtle, as much as this is like putting camo paint on a flamethrower. What else do I have to do with my time, right. /Should be able to handle these, now./

Ah, shit. Yeah, I'm grinning. These were so sick I'd _still_ use them. Triple-based smokeless powder with nitroglycerin and RDX propellant, incendiary-tipped bullets scavenged from our .50 door guns with tungsten carbide penetrator--

Oh. Uh. No. No, you're right, a 12.7mm cartridge holds the amount of powder it holds. You can't put 'extra' in. No, I know it's not 'gunpowder'. That's what made it into the spec sheet for the boss because the boss was kinda, not--look, anyway, they're hand-loaded armor-piercing rounds. Meant for a walking tank.

Would've taken, like, twelve hours to do all these. Meaning he's been up all night packing my match grade doomsday bento.

So, look, _as a joke_ , you know, like, 'thanks honey', I lean in and give him a peck on the cheek. He gets it - he's grinning too.

Of course _right then_ Pequod wanders by to do his pre-flight inspection.

He gives me weird looks all the way to OKB Zero.

What do you mean, how did I feel, turning on everybody? I told you: I already turned. And I don't think you get it. Nobody died that night except the guys who went down trying to protect my old boss when Sally got stompy - if anything, I gave my old buddies an Indian Ocean vacation and a pay raise: up until now the boss'd been swiping sad Soviet conscripts and starving Africans, XOF was - obviously - full of an elite crew like yours truly. You seem skeptical that they'd want to bunk down beside their worst enemies, but that's the thing about my boss: all that weapons grade bullshit about flags, borders not mattering? About us being one big happy military family fighting the government? He truly, sincerely believed it. Don't buy into that retconned crap about profit - that was all Miller. Besides, if the government doesn't pay soldiers, who's gonna?

No, I sat on the sidelines watching my boss inchworm his way through Bronze Age latrines until Sally got hijacked and neither my old boss or my new one knew how to react to it and I don't know how to hum RUN FUCKER RUN through the radio. My boss would've been a strawberry jam speedbump under Sally's treads if I hadn't knocked half its sensor array off in one shot. Sure my boss has a grenade launcher, but he's spending most of his time scrambling around from shitty cover to shittier cover in a game of laser sword hot potato, so it's all me, all--

Yeah I _know_ you asked me about Ocelot - trust me. This is important to our relationship. Besides, who doesn't want to hear about a fight against a Metal Gear? Get your priorities straight.

Well, you know how I said it was taking me forever to line up a shot, because I'm a professional? That's how I'd learned to shoot: ice-blooded jungle-certified counter-sniper, so still the butterflies'd land on me. I thought Ocelot was just trying to get under my skin, didn't have the patience to be a real marksman.

So maybe he _actually_ trying to get me to be more mobile. Play more of an active combat role. The boss needs cover now, not yesterday. I'm zigging and zagging across these cliffs and shoulder-firing a fucking Brennan and I have these _tiny_ windows of opportunity to make good shots against--

Yeah, yeah, exactly. You guessed it. There's more chatter on the boss's channel than an orgy on a sex line coordinating supplies and air support and all of a sudden it cuts out: it's the head of our intel division using his most relaxing radio voice, Sally's schematics on hand to tell me how to take her down. While the boss is keeping her busy with indiscriminate small arms fire and a couple of Bumblebee missiles, I hear: "There's an exposed structural component above the left hip joint," etc., etc., updating the bars on his iDroid every time I hit one. He's cool. Collected. Focused. Boss almost gets flamethrower roasted but Miller's shrill static on the other line; Ocelot's the perfect spotter: tells me what to hit, trusts me to hit it, "good effect on target," moves on to the next. I land the one on the cervical servo between two neck plates that finally puts her down just as one of those rockets hit and BOOM dust shower everywhere I don't even _flinch_ who is the motherfucking machine now bitch.

Me and the boss don't even get to high-five after. No, he's gotta go have his own version of a shotgun wedding, hand-in-hand with Miller's sweaty ass.

Fine, I can be the bigger man. I don't interrupt. I go hang out with Ocelot. Ocelot's _working_ while those two are making their dramatic statement. OKB's files and documents aren't going to steal themselves. I swear to you, it was Ocelot's idea to let Huey touch down and play wedding crasher. I only thought it was a _little_ hilarious. 'Revenge!' And fist-pumping the air, kind of became our own in-joke...

Yeah, Ocelot could be fun sometimes.

Not Miller the party killer. It's only fucking natural for the DD to want a celebration after that. He thought leave'd be a good idea, so everyone can mope-ily question what to do with their lives now that've achieved their grudge climax. _Ocelot_ knows how to build morale; you don't just roll over after you nut and start drinking. I'm happy to help him spread the word through back channels that there's going to be some kind of celebration, complete with booze. Something better than a cake and a badly sung unlicensed version of Happy Birthday (what, are we going to get sued?).

It's still PG as hell: drunken dancing, the kind of boppy pop music the boss likes, Prozac for the soul. Ocelot has to drag the poor guy out of the Commander's clutches to keep him from brooding on the sidelines all night, and well shit, I already know the boss's got rhythm from our impromptu Vincent and Mia impressions in captured outposts playing solid tunes, but so does Ocelot; he warms the boss up and gets everyone in on it while that catty little cunt's trying to hog him all to himself. This is the _one_ chance everybody else gets to get up close and personal without a concussion. Me and him even try to get a mosh pit going until it gets broken up because some asshole almost crushes Pequod.

But on the whole the whole thing's pretty lame, and I bail the second the boss and his bitch start slow dancing. Notice Ocelot's gone too.

Pretty easy to track him when you can taste the nitro on his gloves leave on every surface.

Turns out, down in the helo repair hangar Ocelot is hosting the grownup version of the awkward middle school dance above decks: a trippier Eurotrash version Sweet Dreams is playing, or at least that's what it sounds like - doesn't matter, because it's all backdrop to a porno, and there are way better things on tap than boot-brewed African beer. Most of the combat staff are there and _all_ of the intel staff is, sharing premium hard liquor, the Commander's coke stash, and body fluids.

Right on. I mean, most of that's not worth shit to me - I don't breathe and I can't drink - but _damn_ does it ever make the guys easy. It's a _delectable_ buffet of dick, and if I have to wrestle my top choice off of one, well, I'm open-minded. And up for the challenge. Our S-rank urban combat team's medic has the jaw of Hollywood action hero, he's cut like glass, and he's stopped by my cage enough times to tell me all about what he'd do to me if they let him in there. Well, I figure, now he can. There's some muttering about 'Cipher' - hah - bitch but everybody else is either ok with it or too chickenshit to stop me. Really, I have to knee surprisingly few nuts; most are thrilled to have me on their dick-filled dance floor and it makes sense, this is Team Ocelot.

In fact I get so many rock solid, up front offers I have to drag my top pick off to one of the grounded helos just to get a little privacy.

It's nice for like, the minute and a half it lasts. Conceptually, it's hot as hell; in execution, when you're sober the strung out are terrible lays. There's not much I can do with a soft dick and he seems to think eating muff is meant in the literal sense, so I kick him out. In the literal sense.

But, ah, fuck, I'm not even mad. I can finish myself off. Take the scenic route. Revel in the reality that I'm the queen of bad ideas.

I'm about halfway through and losing interest when Ocelot climbs in on the pilot's side. He's got a healthy post-orgasmic glow, joint in one hand, bottle of nail polish tier vodka the intel guys boot in the other. Doesn't bat a single grey eyelash at finding me butt naked with three fingers jammed up my jizz-leaking snatch.

I'm at the back of the bus where the boss usually sits; Ocelot sits down where I do, to his/my left. Boots up on the opposite seat. I'd ask /do you fucking mind/ but my hands are busy. I make one sign with a free finger, and he just smirks his smirk and drinks his shitty booze.

/Don't be too hard on poor Osprey, he's had a long night./ The joint leaves smoke tracers; it's kind of fascinating. I'm stalled here - I mean I'm used to getting off around him, not used to it while he's paying attention to me. Whole different category of kink, here. /Don't mind me. Taking a little break from the party myself./

Now I _could_ get up and leave. I _could_ throw him out. Or I could show him I don't give a fuck about his mind games and finish off right here. Besides, the pot smoke tastes like my high school parking lot or the safety trench below the firing range at basic, and I have some pretty sweet memories of both.

"Ridding the world of a linguicidal lunatic and his lackeys, not bad for a day's work."

My hands might be busy but my boot's not. I kick him - not too hard, I don't want to break him - and he catches my foot, smirking, but not with his eyes. "I know, I know."

/Would've worked. Absolutely. No question. Just look at North Korea: give a tinpot dictator a nuke and all of a sudden everybody's a whole lot less eager to play World Police. An ironclad opt-out clause from the new world order. I know what he saw in Africa: genocide of smaller tribes by larger ones through fiat of neglect and attrition. Give them a nuke and size no longer matters - he figured a WMD would've been just the ticket to keep his own tribe from getting bulldozed by the greater European powers, too. Probably right. Schrodinger's nuke's been keeping Israel afloat on a sea of enemies for decades./

He's killing the mood, here. I'm hooking my fingers in out of spite, at this point. He knows it.

/Trouble is, he had to have his cake and eat it too. Not enough to solve the problem, have to punish the people that caused it in the first place. That was the Allied logic back in 1919; hear it worked out great for them. Revenge was more important to him than winning. Cost him his win, in fact./

I knock him over with my foot to shut him up. Surprise, surprise, it doesn't work. /Oh? And here I thought you'd be accustomed to awkward one-sided conversations by now./

Okay, okay, I don't have the purest of motives - I'm listening to him because he's smells like sex and he's starting to sway. You know that old saying, candy is dandy but liquor is quicker? I know from the aftermath of our recreational watersports that he can last the better part of a half-hour, and right about now that is a highly. Relevant. Fact.

Maybe, just maybe, I have a vested interest in making him stay. /Sympathetic?/

/You need to understand your enemies to defeat them--/ Whatever that Sun Tsu quote was, you know the one. Hundred battles. Etc., etc. Insert here. /--Besides, the whole premise was flawed. There've been other lingua francas before English and if you wiped it out there'd be another in due time. French again, maybe. Mandarin? Temporary stopgap measure at best, and that's assuming the CDC doesn't have a cure for it in six months. Assuming USAMRIID doesn't have one already - oh, I know Code Talker thinks he's one of a kind, an airtight secret, but in my line of work, you learn that anything more than two people know is no secret. And there are no one-of-a-kinds. Except Snake, of course./

That wasn't the point, though. That was a knock-on benefit. A force amplifier for the disastrafuck of putting WMDs in every mom and pop store. /The rest... say you give each nation a nuke. Keep major powers from imposing their will on minor ones. As you can see with North Korea, that's double-edged. And doesn't solve the problem of ethnic groups within that nation - which one gets the nuke? How do you stop that one from imposing its will on all the others? You've gone and made the international community toothless. Do you give them all nukes? Maybe, but that won't stop larger, wealthier families within that group from exploiting the rest. Forces outsiders to mind their own business, but also makes outsiders powerless to stop in-group violence. It crystallizes power in the fingers over the button and solidifies inequality as surely as the new world order thrives on it. Only in this version, all it takes is one madman to drag us all to hell with him./

"Perhaps the Vitkas of tomorrow would still be speaking Hungarian, but," Sounds like he's dragging _us_. /In the end - far be it from me to speak ill of the dead - no one's ever needed an invading army to abuse children./

He takes a Moscow-sized pull of that vodka and dumps some on the floor of the helo. Pequod's gonna be pissed.

Is this what we're doing? Sure, why not. Soil's a scarce resource on Mother Base; if we did this down in the boss's grow op we'd probably get tackled. Pequod already has worse things than alcohol to clean out of these seats. I can't drink, but I can pour one out for the squad they had to hose off Sally's metal shoes. And for my old boss, I guess. We weren't exactly tight. He was so full of shit sometimes - kinda reminds me of Ocelot, actually. He had a reputation for doing the most mind-blowing, nasty, cruel shit, and he'd milk it so hard during his interrogations his tits'd be sore for days. So that even if one of his threats was pretty improbable or straight up physically impossible it sounded sincere.

I guess that's how me and Ocelot ended up listening to my old boss telling Code Talker he was going to find some fucking Navajo to kill every time he rang a bell, laughing so hard he spits and I snort and I'm not even the drunk chick in this situation.

Yeah okay, I'm a little buzzed. I breathe through my skin, right? I can taste the boss's cigars, so it must mean some of those chemicals are getting through.

Ocelot's clearly pretty high too. And drunk. The chivalrous thing to do would be to let him sleep it off. I don't need Bad Sloppy Drunk Fuck Round Two: The Definition of Insanity.

I'm contemplating whether or not people ever learn from their mistakes when he starts unlacing my boot.

Just, lounging across the seats, on his back, tugging my bootlaces loose with his teeth while he rubs my calf. Nope, nothing weird about that. Platonic foot massage was exactly where I wanted this to go. Couldn't be better.

He's got way smaller hands than my boss, and while my boss is so, so careful Ocelot's got this way of lulling you into spaced out bliss then digging his fingers right into a sore spot _then_ soothing it before you can kick him in the mouth. It's like, oh, yeah, I want this-- no, wait, I don't want this-- wait, yes I do. I wonder if that's how he fucks when he's on top. I wonder if I don't want that Russian fuck doll after all (or do I?).

The only logistical issue is getting him hard. I mean, I'm naked here. In my _prime_. With nipples fit to cut glass and leaking fresh pussy juice. And it's still a no-boner-zone up in this helo. Even my fucking boss gets wood when I'm _naked_ , _come on_. He's got it up for me before. Do I have to let him piss on me again, or what?

I see I have to take matters into my own hands; well, my own foot. I rub it along his chest, into that open shirt. Real nice, real subtle. He relaxes a bit. Doesn't stop me. Good, good. Pretty sure I can lull him into complacency while I go for the prize: put a little pressure on that soft package. Hey, he's not fighting this. He even kisses the back of my knee while I'm doing it. That's a green light, man.

I don't really know what I'm _doing_ \- shit, I even knew a guy who loves to get stepped on, technique never came up, and I am full of regret - but how hard can it be? Knead the tip with my toes, dig my heel in. Not sure it's working that well or he's too hammered to feel much. He gets a little sweaty. Rocks with my foot. Sighs. And damnit, I am getting wetter with each passing second and he's stuck at half-chub at best.

I'm at the point of fuck it, I'll use my mouth, and am getting up to do just that when he rolls over and starts sucking on my little toe.

What the _fuck_. Have you ever had anybody do that to you? No? I don't know how to describe it - just imagine it, ok? I don't know if I should flail or laugh or spasm or _what_ it's sensory overload, it's so sensitive there are all kinds of weird muscles tensing all over my body. I'm just _starting_ to adjust to it when he pulls of and _blows_ on it, and that cuts through me like the first time I ever saw the boss in the shower.

Yeah, he's tonguing all over the pads of my toes, down the instep, just the tip and I'm writhing because it feels so _weird_ but _good_. Moves up to my ankle, kissing it, but I can feel his tongue poking past his lips; he's up on his elbows now _somehow_ and I can see down his shirt while he does this hair-tucking-behind-ear thing that is not allowed to be hot on a 40-year-old man. It's not. It is _not allowed_ to be hot when crawls up to my thigh and does the same thing to the inside. It's just the way he _moves_ , it's slow and languid but intense at the same time, and somehow when he does it his clothes hide _nothing_ and I know exactly what I'll see if I tear them off and _ffuuuuuckk_ he blows on my dripping wet pussy--

"They say seduction is like hunting," The only reason I remember this is that every time he moves his mouth I can feel warm lips on my own throbbing ones, and his voice is so deep I can feel his throat rumble against the inside of my thigh, too, "In my view they're not wrong, but... You don't hunt a rabbit the same way you would a wild cat."

And then he gets to work. Good boy. I mean he doesn't have much of a choice, I've got one leg hooked over his shoulder, but he gets right down in there of his own accord - I didn't ask him to start all the way down where Osprey's come has dripped down my asscrack and lick it all up. With a little "hmm" I can feel against my crotch. By the time he's worked his way to that ridge between my cunt and my asshole I'm about ready to fuck myself with his tongue and I'm not going to let him go until he does it.

God yeah, it's slippery and soft and I was expecting it to feel pretty fucking good, but I wasn't expecting it to burn a little then tingle, because holy shit, I drink through my skin too right? He's got vodka in his mouth, and it's crossing right through the mucous membrane. Feels flush, nice, just like drinking it the vanilla way would, spreads all through my pelvis.

He lets that soak in. Pulls his head out for a second to kiss up my stomach so lightly I can barely feel his lips but by the time he gets there I am so sensitive that when he pushes his tongue into my navel I nearly come.

I gave him what, a 9.3 last time? This is pretty close to a 9.9. Minus 0.1 for the fact that he's still not hard, even when I dig my other boot in.

I'm on my third or fourth orgasm while he's giving my clit a vodka tongue bath when somebody bangs on the door with a wrench. And I am way too close to let go of Ocelot's head right now.

"My bird is not your fuck pad!" Oh it's just Pequod. Whatever. I tug on Ocelot's hair to get him to continue. "You've got ten seconds to get out of there before I bring the hose around."

Yeah, like I don't want to see Ocelot dripping wet.

Then oh shi-- our pint-sized pilot's opening the door: "Get out of there before I tell O... ce... Oh. Hi."

Pequod just sorta stands there in the open doorway for a minute, mouth half-open. Looks at me. Looks at Ocelot. Looks at me. I swear to god he starts rolling backwards like he's on a conveyor belt, like he can't get out of there fast enough but also doesn't want to tear his eyes away. Like I can't see him salivate or the tent in his pants.

Hey, Pequod's pretty cute. Pretty damn cute. Not really my type, but fuck me, neither's Ocelot. Here's the thing, though: Ocelot's staring right back at him, and if the strong nudge against my boot's anything to go by, my wild cat's found his appetite.

Hey, it's the least I can do.

So I hop out and scruff him. Is it scruffing when you grab the front collar too? I don't know. I pick him up anyway while he's all, like, "Q-quiet! You two were _not_ who I was expecting, maybe Ocelot's quarters blah blah blah," and hell yes I'm grinning because he gets _rock_ hard with his face pressed up against my tits. That shuts him up, too.

Ocelot knows what I've got in mind - I told you, nobody's quicker on the uptake. He shuts the door behind us and when Pequod gets the idea that I'm giving him permission to touch me he just about nuts. Wow. Yeah, you know how I said I was stretching and wiggling my ass and doing everything but writing FUCK ME on the walls of the ACC to try to get my boss to take the hint? Totally forgot there was a whole other dude in there, probably furiously struggling to be professional. Pequod gets adorably gropey before Ocelot pulls him away to have a little guy talk. I mean, I assume it's guy talk. It ends with Pequod nodding and Ocelot's teeth on his ear, rubbing the front of his flight suit.

At first I'm like: gentlemen, we're past foreplay. Soft sloppy makeouts aren't even in the rearview mirror. Get your dicks out already. But I had woefully underestimated the degree to which seeing Pequod swallow Ocelot's pot smoke would be like _lightning_ to my clit. How nice it'd be to have him unwrapped, slowly, like a goddamn birthday present - happy birthday to _me_ \- unzipped, stroked, his drooling dick fondled and then sucked. Ocelot bends down, just kinda tongues the tip into his mouth, then swallows the whole thing. Pequod's eyes roll back like he's about to faint. Fuck. Sure. Consider my horizons expanded. I could definitely get off to this.

But I didn't drag Pequod in here to get a _show_. I boot Ocelot off before he can make him blow his load; like, damnit, that's _mine_. And Ocelot's like: /I was thinking we could share him./

Not how my double sausage threesomes usually work, but could be talked into doing anything but scat right about now. Even then, _maybe_... Nah. Nah.

And no, in case you were wondering, Ocelot does _not_ take his gloves off before he starts reaching into another man's asshole. I sure hoped he bleaches those, you know. He's only got one finger in there and Pequod grimaces like he's railed by a fence post. It is way past time to reconsider this, buddy. Suck it up. I help him out by toying with his spit-moist cock with my foot, and trust me, he takes it way better than Ocelot did. I mean it's not a huge cock, all things considered, it's pretty average but it looks big on him - he was what, 5'3"? 5'4"? Imagine what a 10" dick would look like on a guy like that, like truck nuts on a Civic--

Haha don't worry, he gets into it. One second he looks like he's getting a footjob at the doctor's office, all tense, the next he gasps and does this whole body shudder, starts fucking himself on Ocelot's hand as well humping my toes. Little hilarious to trail them up his nice flat abs and watch him desperately try to follow while at the same time not pull away from whatever Ocelot's doing to his prostate.

But, look, if I wanted to be a voyeur I could get my rocks off 24/7. Shit, I can turn invisible. I signal for Ocelot to get on with it already - I'm sure he's happy to oblige, his dick's so hard I can see the whole thing through his fly - and he's like, there's no way, Pequod's not even close to ready.

I can see how rushing things might be a problem for a guy whose job it is to sit in a chair for ten hours.

It's not like I carry lubricant around - I can make my own - and Ocelot goes bug-eyed when I suggest using the oil for the .50 door guns, /Not unless you want to send him to the infirmary/, but you know what, I got this. I know exactly who has the right kind of lube for fucking.

I don't even have to rummage around in Miller's mountains of paperwork and mouldy food to find it, either. It's right out on the night stand, recently used, and the man himself goes as bug eyed as Ocelot when he shrieks GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE BITCH three octaves higher than usual.

Hey, I didn't know he'd be in the middle of getting laid, too.

Anyway, that speeds shit up. Ocelot's very good at don't ask, don't tell, and by the time he's got three glistening fingers up there Pequod's red to the shoulders and literally drooling. The way Ocelot rubs his tip along Pequod's crack to get lubed up himself is pretty hot, too, the perfect way to get your mind off-- nevermind.

Huh? Oh, Pequod's pretty portable, it's easier than you'd think. And Ocelot's the most flexible guy I've ever met. I can just push Pequod's leg up and out of the way like a girl getting fucked up against a wall and get in on his dick while Ocelot fucks him from the other side. Ocelot and I can each take a shoulder so we don't end up headbutting; Pequod looks like he doesn't know up from down at this point, and I've gotta admit it's nice to have somebody pay attention to my tits for once.

With anybody else I'm sure this'd be hot in theory, pretty awkward in practice, but Ocelot lets me take the lead. Thrusts in the rhythm _I_ want, and he's so good at it it reminds me of the way he followed the boss around the dance floor, not missing a step. Which I did a pretty good job of ignoring earlier that night, but with a throbbing cock buried up to the balls inside my fuck hole and two very fuckable men grunting and thrusting three inches from my face, yeah, I definitely noticed the way my boss had his hands _all over_ Ocelot the second he got the chance. I'm not _mad_ , but from the way Miller was moaning face-down into his pillow it sure seemed like he'd be a nice lay.

Yeah I might be thinking about a different guy. So what? It's not like I can accidentally say the wrong name.

It's getting so sweaty I might as _well_ be in the shower with him. It's pouring down my chest and pooling, like, _everywhere_ between three pairs of hips, dripping from my chin... Which Ocelot licks? Which is really awkward, but also kind of hot?

He's trying to get my attention. Right in my ear: "You know, I'd be willing to bet those parasites made _all_ of your muscles stronger."

Ah, that twisted little fucker. Gotta love him. Never even occurred to me, but sure enough, I clamp down on Pequod's dick as hard as I can and he whimpers like I'd just punched it. Ocelot's grinning - he's definitely getting off on this. Literally, from the looks of it - whatever I'm doing to him, Pequod must be doing something fun inside to Ocelot's own cock while he squirms. I'm so tight the poor guy can't even come, which I'm not above milking for a nice, slow ride as Pequod transforms from enthusiastic sandwich filling to shuddering wreck. Pretty sure he's audible outside the aircraft.

Ocelot doesn't fight me when I push them both back against the hull so I can get just the right angle to grind my clit down on Pequod to get off - and also not, like, fall over once my legs start really shaking, that's always embarrassing. Pequod blows his load the second I slip off; Ocelot picks him up, bends him over, and fucks him to completion. Must be nice to never have to worry about pulling out - at least, Ocelot definitely doesn't. Watching them grind together and make out until Ocelot's soft is definitely one of those things I've got stored for later.

After that Ocelot's got Shit To Do, I guess, and Pequod's too fucked out to anything but lay there in a heap, so I figure I'll keep him company. I know there's a chance I'll get lucky again, so it's not like it's totally selfless.

We're sprawled there finishing off Ocelot's vodka when he says the damnest thing: "Glad he's finally found somebody again. I was starting to worry about him."

At first I'm like, ok, confirmed: he and the boss definitely used to bang, then the boss made a trash decision, that's not news, but _then_ , "Thought he'd never move on from the Commander. Wasn't expecting, uh... well, you know, anyway, I'm happy for you."

Whoa whoa whoa _what_. My expression here's got to be clearer than any sign language.

"You didn't know? Well, why would you. It was years ago. Before the boss came back."

Sure, like a drunken blindfolded hatefuck after a fistfight, maybe, but, "They used to share a bedroom as well as an office."

Ocelot doesn't act jilted. At all. Miller's the pissy one. This doesn't make sense. I thought my respect for Miller couldn't get any lower but by the time Pequod's done telling me about Ocelot literally pulling Miller's ass out of an oil fire on the ocean it's tunneled straight through rock bottom down to dead dinosaurs. Because my boss and Ocelot are pretty clearly into each other, so if Miller and Ocelot are into each other, the only thing that could possibly be stopping them from three-dick threesomes is Miller's refusal to share. What pathetic petty fuck.

So maybe I do a few things to that lube bottle before I return it.

Turns out it's the only one he's got so he'll either have to use it anyway, or get chafed until we get a new supply shipment, so I'm grinning on my way back to my cage. It's nearly dawn, and aside from a few hungover duty patrols, dead as hell. So I'm kinda surprised to hear music still playing on the dance floor. Pretty quietly. But somebody's there, moving to it.

It's my boss. Trying to replicate the steps he did earlier, alone this time. One eye closed. Every so often he fucks one up and shakes his head. Keeps trying. Smacks his head against his palm.

He can't do it. He keeps trying and trying and... I don't know what to do. Eventually he just wheels around, angry like I've never seen him, and smashes the tape player to pieces with his prosthetic.

Stares at it a while. Then starts trying to pick up them all up again. Put them back together. On his knees. His other hand's getting all cut up, and-- I don't know.

I don't know.

I just, phase in there and kick over one of the tables. Full of glasses and shit. Party's over, right? He's such a bystander. He just looks at me.

When I hand him a bottle he gets the idea.

So yeah, we trashed the place. Tore down the lights and knocked over the bar and flipped all the benches. Pushed the whole DJ stand into the sea. By the end of it he's smiling again, and we hear a patrol coming and we just _book_ it out of there and hide between the shipping containers until we can make a break for the medical platform. Spend the rest of the day dozing on my shitty cot - not like either of us got any sleep last night.

What's this have to do with Ocelot? Well, Miller's panties got so tightly wadded over this he was walking with a limp. But wouldn't you know it, the intel guys didn't have any footage of who wrecked up the dance floor. Too bad. The perps got away with it.

Ocelot's got my back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will have references to the highly excellent [Ricochet](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7962934) if you would like some assigned readings.
> 
> And hell yeah, I don't usually post art until the fic is done but this was so hot I had to show it to you. Besides it's not like it's, uh, spoilers.
> 
> By the ever fantastic [Johnny](https://twitter.com/thearuxes):
> 
> [](https://imgur.com/cvQww0A)


	6. Flinch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge shout out to mango, the stickiest sickly sweet fruit, for all of the (relentlessly honest) advice. There's one scene in this I rewrote three/four times. And to Lia, for the inspiration and entirely edifying ocekaz chats.

You guessed it, holding hands with his boyfriend while he blew my old boss with a shotgun did nothing to unwad Miller's panties. If anything, they bunched up tighter in his asscrack. Having cameras cover every inch of available space was just _great_ for morale, let me tell you. 

The one time he put one of those patronizing posters down in my cage I was like "oh yeah, I hope he _is_ watching" and jilled it for like an hour until that mouth-breathing greaseball hobbled over to take it away.

I mean _yeah_ it probably didn't help that the boss'd filled mother base to the brim with former XOF guys. _Yeah_ some of them were leaking information out to other agencies and PMCs, but come on, Ocelot had it covered. 

How'd it fly, with the Diamond Dogs' mortal enemies on base? You've gotta remember at this point there's almost nobody from the old MSF left. PMCs don't care, Russians don't care, Mujahideen don't care, boss doesn't care - Miller's left squalling all by himself like a baby with a shitty diaper.

Besides, my former squadmates figure out pretty quick that one of the best ways to get in good with their new buddies is to throw me under the bus. 

Like, I get it, it's all good. I'd probably do the same. Only I wouldn't just spit into it like a little boy mad because his single mom and her boyfriend locked the bedroom door, I'd man up and get my dick out, Hippo. 

Yeah my boot'll fit through the bars, too, and after I give some asshole trying way too hard to say "Cipher bitch" with a straight face a concussion Ocelot decides I need a time out.

We've graduated from hiding in the crawl space to a couple of lawn chairs up on the roof of one of the buildings on the combat platform. Nice sunny day, crack open a cold one, pour it on your skin. 

Ocelot's got this scheme, right, where he thinks I should be able to hit a ricochet. If the parasites gave me superhuman reflexes to be able to shoot between rotor blades, why not? I can't shoot a regular bullet out of the air - I mean come on, I _tried_ that the second I realized I was amped up on bug speed. Most bullets travel faster than the speed of sound, though. That's why they go BOOM, CRACK--

Well fuck man, I've had to explain all kinds of dumb ass shit to you, why not See Spot Shoot?

Uh, I mean, yeah, anyway: ricochets travel at around the same speed as rotor blades or slower. Only they're tiny. And do more than spin in a circle. We're mostly pissing time away, to be honest. It is a chance to shoot the shit, though.

Whatever I thought it was pretty good.

So I ask him exactly what he plans to do about bondage baby - the hovering tween sidekick of flaming rivethead, whose corpse is decorating the quarantine platform. Nobody else seems to take much notice, but I've seen Ocelot look right at him.

/I floated the idea--

Oh sure laugh at _his_ puns, jackoff.

/--of a psychic past the boss but he just laughed it off. I'll have to come up with more convincing evidence./

Why the boss is unconvinced by the idea of a psychic helping the eighteen years of regret that resulted from his one-night-stand with Cipher talk to the other kids when he's been stalked by a human flamethrower powered by bullets across Africa, I couldn't tell you. Intracranial helicopter piercings are bad for you, I guess.

We stop talking as soon as we hear the three-legged clomp of the boss's bitch at the bottom of the stairs. I'm tempted to bail but it's way too funny to listen to him wheeze like a lung cancer patient when it takes him five straight minutes to walk up four flights. By the time Miller gets up to where we're waiting for him he's dripping sweat from his depression beard and has to catch his breath before he harangues us.

Ocelot hands me a beer and we clink bottlenecks and we're like halfway done before Miller's done shaking and panting.

"PT is import--"

"Ocelot, explain to me why you're spreading rumours that you and this _thing_ are fucking." Damn, was he trying to catch in the act? Because I could've come twice in the time it took him to drag his flabby ass up here.

Ocelot's just like: "We are."

And holy shit, Miller's ugly face goes through the full five stages of grief, you should've seen it. Complete with eye twitches and ten or twelve comebacks that die on his spittle-flecked lips. "N-no you're _not_."

This is too good, so I nod along. And what the hell, drape myself nice and sexy around Ocelot. Grab his package.

"What the fuck is _wrong_ with you?" I shit you not, Miller tries to smack us apart with his cane. I just catch it and yank it out of his hand. Now he's barely holding himself upright, teetering - it's hilarious.

"We're consenting adults, Miller. It's up to us what we do with our free time." Ocelot is flawless, here, with a classic protective straight guy waist grab. He even strokes my butt.

"She's a _prisoner_ that is _explicitly_ against Snake's totally made up rules blah blah abuse of power blah blah bad for morale blah troops look up to you blah I'm a jealous manwhore wah wah wah where's _my_ pity fuck."

Then Ocelot does this thing where he purses his lips like he does when he's whistling, and DD just launches himself right at Miller. Knocks him right onto one of the plastic lawnchairs. Miller flails around hilariously for a while but that dog is as big as he is and not listening to a word he says. He's pinned. DD's licking all the sweat off his face and getting drool smears all over his sunglasses.

Naturally he pitches a fit over Ocelot's bad training, but Ocelot's just like "wouldn't be a very good attack dog if he listened to anybody's commands other than Snake and I had to teach him" - like I said, Ocelot's bullshit is so airtight it's hermetically sealed. He's at Ocelot's mercy to tell DD to sit, which he does like a good boy.

I mean, sure DD'll listen to me, too, but I love it when Ocelot messes with his ex.

Miller melts into the chair for a while and it takes me a second to realize he's so tired from walking up the stairs and wrestling a pet dog that he can't stand up. I swear to god he's on the verge of fainting. Ocelot and I go back to shooting and Miller cracks open a beer like joining us was his plan all along.

I can't remember how it turned into a contest, exactly. I think two or three beers in Miller started with the smack talk and before long we were lining up the empties for target practice. He was... ok, I guess. I mean it's way easier to shoot from a seated position than standing, but it's only fair we give him a handicap, he is one.

He gets drunker, we start tossing bottles over the side to shoot and he's out of his league, but Miller does figure out a way to access the boss's tunes over my slaved radio. A couple of beers later he's humming along to Kids in America and trying to bounce bottlecaps off our asses to distract us. Hey, it's the only chance he's got of keeping up. Plus he gets one down Ocelot's cleavage.

And I'm like: hey, the alcohol seems to have dissolved the fist-thick rod in his sphincter. Who knew?

By this point even Ocelot's having trouble keeping up with me. We're throwing two or three at a time. We're tight; I'll keep the boss's girlfriend company. Besides, there's something I've _gotta_ ask him. Ocelot might not want anybody else knowing I know sign language, but you don't need a PhD in charades to point between the two of them and mash your hands together.

" _No._ Who told you that?"

Spinny helicopter blade motion.

For a guy who scoffed a second ago, Miller sure changes his tune in a hurry. So, Pequod's dirt is legit. "Not... _really_. We fooled around a couple--"

The parasites catch Ocelot signing "hundred" here, while he lines up another shot.

"--times."

Pequod said they shared a fucking bedroom, though.

"It was _cost-effective_! And efficient. We were on a 24-hour work day."

Ocelot doesn't even turn around. He's just like: "It's true. I am much more cost-effective than a prostitute. No knock-on expenses, either - or knock-up expenses, case being."

"Hah. Funny. Almost as funny as nailing that Moroccan my grandmother's age because she was the only mechanic around for miles and you ruined the clutch. Again." 

"Oh, you want to talk sucking on saggy genitals to make business deals, Miller? I can _still_ taste Liu Shen-scented smegma." 

"Sure, but without my help we would've been there all fucking day." Miller punctuates that with a classy burp. "Quiet, this asshole gave the _worst_ head. I taught him everything he knows."

Now I'm not shocked Miller's sucked a lot of dick in his day. I'm sure that was his summer job in high school. I'm shocked Ocelot _hasn't_. I'm also curious how 'we fooled around a couple of times' meshes with 'personal blowjob sensei' in Miller's head, but hell, by this point I'd figured out I'd joined the cognitive dissonance brigade ages ago.

Ocelot misses his shot and I'm just like 'yeah bitch that's right who's the stone cold deadeye now.' Miller classes it the fuck up with a grunt. 

"He's humoring you. It's one of his bullshit head-games - seen it a hundred times. He's bolstering your confidence."

Whatever, sore loser. Ocelot's done, like, half an eye roll when Miller whips a full bottle right at his head. He's standing close enough to kick and it's faster than most normal people could flinch. 

Ocelot shoots it right out of the air. Half-turns and hits the hammer with his palm and everything.

Well shit. Miller was right. 

Of course this close it still sprays all over Ocelot's face and gets in his hair. He looks like a cat sprayed with a water hose and just as thrilled about it. But, ah, fuck - it's adorable. Maybe I laughed a little. Miller laughed a lot. 

"Maybe you should show your girlfriend a little more respect." For like a _microsecond_ Miller looks like the quasi-fuckable metrosexual player from the old XOF intel reports from the 70s instead of the reeling pit-stained drunk he is today. Kinda' ruined by the fact he's got an equally microscopic bulge from thigh-contact with me.

"Oh I do. Every night." Ocelot's licking the beer off his fingers and yeah it's as subtle as a helicopter crashing into the platform exactly what each finger is supposed to be.

"Oh fuck off. You do not. You two aren't fucking."

"Hm, aren't we?"

"Prove it."

"Now how would we do that?"

"Fuck her. Right here. Right now."

Yes sir, don't need to tell me twice, I phase right on up beside Ocelot to get a heady snuff of L'eau de Man Who Has Showered In The Past Week, but he's like: "No."

"Hah. Knew it."

"Miller, anybody could walk in on us. You said it yourself, it's unprofessional."

I honestly don't know whose side to take - never met a man who was this stingy with his dick.

"So kiss her."

Ocelot shrugs, pulls my chin up with two fingers. Don't usually have to look up to kiss guys and let me tell you, daddy kink does nothing for me, but there's nothing daddy-like about the way he tugs my lower lip with his teeth then tongues my mouth open. He tastes like shitty beer, but fuck me, I haven't been kissed in so long it could have been $300 Cristal. I don't _drink_ so this gets real sloppy in a hurry with all his saliva dripping out of my mouth - but don't worry, he licks it all up off my jaw and off my lips and off my tongue and teeth and-- yeah, it's, nice.

You could _hear_ Miller start panting like a horny puppy, by the way.

So I know what Ocelot's up to when he touches my tits for the first time in... well, I think the first time ever. Hooks a thumb under my bikini strap and strokes the side. Works his way up to the nipple and pulls the fabric down _just_ enough for it to pop. Ocelot tilts his head down and for a second I think he's going to suck on it, but no, he just blows on it and it hardens, and I remember him doing the same to my clit which I'm _really_ starting to wish he'd suck right about now.

Miller's breathing's so ragged I crack an eye open to make sure he's not jerking it. He's not, though he's got so much wood it's about to ram right through his zipper. Does this shaky, breathy, unhinged little laugh: "You're not _fucking_ her. You're not even _hard_."

It's true. Ocelot's crotch is flatter than Middle America. Game, set, match: Miller. 

"Maybe I'm not in the mood." For the loser, Ocelot's got one hell of a nasty-sexy-cruel smirk right now. "You are, though."

I read you loud and clear, babe. 

I crawl up over Miller with my thigh between his legs and the man _vibrates_ he's trembling so hard. He knows he's fucked - the only person who can stop this is Ocelot, and hah, good luck.

"Don't you fucking touch me, bitch." Listen: it's not that I _want_ to take Miller's tiny dick out. I'm just tired of his bullshit, too, and it's time we had some honesty in our relationship. It's as ugly as he is anyway: so curved it looks like it's drooping and drooling jizz all over the place. Blond pubic hair always looks weird and it's stuck to his shaft in gross unwashed clumps. Smells nasty, too.

When he realizes I'm not going to stop he downs a whole bottle of liquid courage in the time it takes me to shimmy out of my panties; shaking and hyperventilating and eyes darting around, raving something about murdering us both but he offers zero resistance when I straddle his waist. 

Look: I wasn't _really_ going to fuck Miller. I mean, yech. I'd rather lick a shit-stained urinal. 

But his face is _priceless_ when I look like I'm getting ready to see how many of those three inches I can shove up my snatch, like he's watching the world's angriest porno. Only, a second before I have to either pull the trigger or let him in on the joke, Miller crumples over ribs heaving like he's having a heart attack.

"Qui--"

Ocelot's a bro, I was pretty sure he was trying to warn me: Miller's about to spew. And spew he does. 

All over my neck, and right down my chest. Did I mention I _drink_ through my _skin_? If I could still puke, I would've. It's 90% red meat, beer, and bile and oh fuck, oh fuck, I can't wipe it off fast enough, Ocelot jumps in with the save with the melted ice from our cooler and dumps it right over both of us.

No reaction from Miller. He's out cold. Ocelot's all, "Aw, shucks, he does this every time," and if I'd thought back then like I kind of do now that Ocelot _knew_ Miller was gonna throw up on me to serve me right I would've clocked him. He's way too smug about all of this.

/Snake'll come get him./ He rolls Miller over onto his side so he doesn't choke to death and ditches him there. I shrug and phase off to shower.

Here's the thing, though: Ocelot might be able to outsmart me, but he can't see me. I'm still there when he comes back to carry Miller down himself. I saw him clean him up and put him back in his room.

And back up there, parasites saw him with his hand on his revolver grip behind my back.

 

Look, it wasn't that I was spying on Ocelot. He could tunnel his way to Bullshit China for all I cared. I know which side he’s on.

At least I'd solved one mystery: Miller's a hundred times more fuckable when he's drunk, so if it's Ocelot's dick he was riding, he must've spent the last nine years pissed to the gills.

No, it was my boss who asked me to keep an eye out for his old war buddy.

Maybe it was his way of cheering me up. Giving me something to do. He was always like that. Always thinking about what was going on in other people's heads, how he could fix--

You know what, never mind. Long story short, my boss thought he'd be upset when we--

Hey, I thought you only wanted to know about me and Ocelot. Alright, fine. If you really give a shit: I was laying in a puddle of my own guts outside Nova Braga airfield while he held them in, killing time for a medivac. I mean, my body's basically a Chia pet, just add water and sunlight and I'll grow right back, no big, no big, but that shit takes time. We both know I'll be out of commission for a while. 

Why? Because I'm a fucking idiot. Got hit with a mortar and rode the Gravity Express to ground level from a fifty-foot lookout platform. All to get a stupid _tape_.

See the boss, he likes the shittiest music. Ear cancer with a techno beat. So when I heard some guard playing a Billy Idol song that was boppy enough for him, but didn't make me want to perforate my own eardrums, really need that sign language, I gunned straight for it. Under artillery fire. I thought I could make it. I did make it. Got the tape and everything.

Only I crushed it in my hand on the way down.

So yeah, there I am, in my puddle, spine like a twisted up slinky, racking up a swear jar to pay down the collective debts of every first world country, and he comes back after the place goes dark to sit with me and rub my shoulders. Not in enough of a singular piece to Fulton, we've gotta wait.

He tells me he got me a present. Well, he doesn't - he just kinda holds out a cupped fist and nods to it. Smiling. Puts it in my hand.

Fuck me, it's a butterfly. A shitty little butterfly. It's dirty, it's funeral home beige, it's got a notched wing and it's missing a leg. Maybe it was a moth - don’t ask me, I'm not a bug-ologist. He carried a fucking butterfly through shelling in a metal fist and he hasn't even rubbed the powder off its wings.

Why a butterfly? What, you think I kept a book full of them next to my scented candles and dream diary? I told you: back in 'Nam, I got into a .50 staring match with a VC sniper that lasted 18 goddamn hours. I was so still this fist-sized golden emperor landed on me. Right on my shoulder. In that moment I realized people had them all wrong: you think they're beautiful, delicate, but deep down they're savage bloodthirsty bitches born to die. Yeah, born to die, but not today: that thing was my spirit animal and when I pasted that sniper's brain across the A Shau Valley I swear it was grinning right back at me. Or maybe that was the malaria.

Anyway, point is, after that I started naming my rifles after butterflies. I even had a butterfly tattoo, with a skull for a face and a blood on its wings - before Big Boss roasted my skin off.

That stupid beat-up butterfly doesn't even fly away when he opens his hand.

He leans in, tucks my hair behind my ear, and sacks the mood harder than Jean-Claude Van Damme: "You and Ocelot are close, right?"

Fuck me like a freight train, not him too. I don't have the words to tell him me and Ocelot aren't _that_ kind of close. Well, not _really_. 

Told you, he reads me: he laughs it off, like the sliver of African sun on the horizon. "I know, I know. It's not like that. He wouldn't know what to do with a woman if you gave him an instruction manual. You two are trying to get under Kaz's skin again. I can't say it isn't working."

I mean yeah, not only does he not need an instruction manual, as far as I’m concerned Ocelot could write the Michelin Road Guide to the clitoris, but he's so good at acting like he was handling bats for the home team since the day he was born I sometimes wonder if I dreamed those orgasms.

"You've noticed, haven't you? He's been acting differently ever since we brought the Man on Fire's body back to Mother Base. Maybe he never told you this, but that was his old CO. Colonel Volgin. The man who raised him."

Told you he likes to think about the shit going on in other people's heads. "Ocelot never knew his own parents. He'd never admit it, but I'm sure he thought of Volgin as something like a father... I'm not surprised he's taking this hard. Check up on him, will you? Grief can be one of the hardest things to process."

Sure, you might accuse him of being so far off the mark he's landed in another country, but the next thing my boss does is point to his pupils and say: "I know he uses a lot more than alcohol to cope."

 

Look, the only reason I bothered was I had all kinds of time to kill. I heal at the rate of your average tequila hangover with one-third the vomit and two-thirds the regret so I'm out of comission for a couple days, max. The boss's desperate housewives queue up some of those 'go flower-picking with your dog' "missions" for him which means the rest of the staff can take leave, practice flight maneuvers, use the big guns on Somali pirates and barbeque some of the better-tasting animals on the conservation platform before the boss realizes they're missing. I mean, we only need so many sheep, you know? It's not like they're endangered. And it's not like he ever does a head count of his Welsh harem.

The only other thing I've got to do is try to swap some outside world contraband for a new tape case. Nothing like trading a pack of cigarettes and a spit-slathered handjob to really make you feel like you're back in Leavenworth.

Might as well piss some of my plant zombie life away checking up on Ocelot. And hey, I'll be damned: he _is_ a bit twitchy. 

It's the little things: like, the fact that nobody's left the brig in days. Or him walking just the right amount of inches in front of Miller so that every door closes in his face, responding to one of Miller's pissy pen jabs by straight up dislocating his finger (you should've seen his face, he looked like his drunk date just rammed it in the wrong hole, it was priceless). But it was when I watched him break the neck of some rat DD decided not to finish chewing with an 'I just licked coke off a twunk's eight pack' face that I was like, yeah, ok, he's off his meds.

So uh how detailed do you want me to be here? It gets kinda rough. I'm not talking "accidentally clicking on a porn acronym you don't recognize" rough, I'm talking "clicking on a porn acronym you don't recognize on a Russian website for raw cam footage" rough. 

Well, okay, but don't say I didn't warn you.

See, Ocelot does take a trip out to the Quarantine platform. On the books it's listed as a routine maintenance and safety equipment inspection, but shit, nobody sends the head of their intelligence division to check tags and turn a few wrenches. Especially when the head of their intelligence division puts the jack on the frame when he's trying to change a tire - oh yeah believe me, we'll get to _that_ story. What I'm trying to say is, the whole thing's fishier than a month old pair of panties.

Pequod's not even the one flying him. It's the fixed wing pilot. Fuck, I don't remember his name - let's call him Bottom Feeding Bear because I think I saw him blow Ocelot at the boss's birthday party. No chance of this getting back to the catty little cunt in the control room.

I hitch a ride. It's not really fair - well, nah, all's fair in love, war, and espionage. He'd be pretty proud of me for putting my one-trick pony skill to use, I think.

When we get there a year later (seriously, you'd think helos needed to circle to build up speed or something based on our slow ass sky jockeys, I can run between platforms faster) Ocelot tells Thirstful Ursine to circle the block for half an hour, and to report any alarms from the Quarantine platform as system malfunctions.

Naughty boy. I like where this is going. Property destruction is my third favorite thing. Right after guns, cock, and taking my shoes off on an airplane.

So about our quarantine platform: it originally got built to isolate victims of the Kikongo strain before I sold out my old buddies. It's not connected to the Command platform like the others - only way to get out there is to fly or swim. It's only got a couple of buildings; for the most part it's a steel pit with a single ladder leading down to where we've got an medical treatment tent nobody's been assed to take down, some contaminated cardboard boxes Miller's too cheap or lazy to toss out - says something about "weathering" like that's a thing - and a couple of holding cells. It's not manned. All the doors are locked. Emergency power only - i.e. no cameras.

Ocelot still makes sure he's tucked in behind an exhaust vent before he shoots up for what looks like the hundredth time since last Sunday - seriously, long sleeves in the tropics, it's not that subtle - and I get that. We might be the better part of a click away from the Medical platform but guys with scopes get bored and looksy. I would know, I'm one of them.

At first I'm like: boy, if you dragged me all the way out here just to watch babies crawl on the ceiling you'd better be willing to share, but then I notice the weirdest fucking thing:

He's _walking differently_. Listen: when you're laying flat under a bush for hours and you can't turn your head without risking a bullet-sized skull renovation, you learn to pay attention to how people walk. Somebody sneaking around sounds a lot different from somebody strolling. Somebody hurrying. Somebody limping. Somebody carrying a heavy weapon walks differently from somebody with a light one: changes your game plan if your target's got an HMG instead of a rifle. 

Ocelot walks like somebody putting each foot exactly where he wants it to be. Normally. Even when he's in a hurry; he strides, he doesn't scramble, and he pushes down harder than he needs to on his heels. I get it, I get it, everybody gets it: it's so you can hear him coming. So that prisoners sweat and Miller grinds his teeth from fifty yards away.

Why is he walking on the balls of his feet now? It's still leather soles on steel grates: there's nothing stealthy about it. He's walking like somebody who needs balance. Somebody who knows he's about to get into a fistfight.

But there's nobody here.

Hey, getting all the way down the ladder in reverse reflex mode deserves a golf clap at least. Turns out they've dumped Colonel Kebab's body on a tarp in one of those holding cells. Seems overkill to me for a corpse, underkill if he's not and can teleport, but we've established I'm not enough of an idiot or a mouth-breather to make the decisions around here. 

Ocelot circles it a couple times. Kicks some leftover vials and toe tags from the last infection down under the grates. Gnaws on his glove leather. I'm like, damn, I've seen Ocelot make dramatic pauses before, but I've never seen him hesitate.

Also, damn, that's a big dude. Ocelot's a big dude himself, and Volgin's got the better part of a foot on him up _and_ sideways. 

He stops near the head, takes a deep breath, and switches gears from the platonic ideal of a soulless Slavic scowl to a shit-eating smile that damn near touches his ears.

Disclaimer: Russian is not even my third language. Ocelot slows down and enunciates for me - this is native speaker to native speaker. You're not getting UN interpreter-quality translations, here.

Something like: "It's a shame, really. After all this time I was looking forward to our reunion. To show you what I've learned."

No shit that doesn't sound like him. Maybe I'm misremembering, but it doesn't even sound like his balls've dropped all the way. He's pacing again while he's saying this. Walking on his heels again. Smaller strides. Shoulders pulled back. Full on trash talk hand gestures, straight out of a 60s mob musical. I don't have a single goddamn clue what's going on right now, but watching wouldn't-blink-if-a-bomb-went-off Ocelot transform into this cocky cunt is two handjobs worth of entertainment.

"Of course, the student usually doesn't expect to surpass the master the second he sees his techniques - but you were always a hack, Volgin. You thought it was the pain that broke people. Or the fear of it. The fear of you."

At this point the tarp's starting to steam. Ocelot's way too lost in his monologue to notice, though, and I'm way too entertained by his off-brand oral masturbation to interrupt.

"An artist understands that there is more to the human mind than cause and effect. Than the knowledge that if you hit them, they'll get hurt. At least, _most_ minds. Or do you still think I turned on you for a chance to touch rugged commando chest hair and a taste of cut capitalist cock?"

One shrapnel-studded fist clenches and Ocelot steps on it like a spider - really grinds it bloody with his weight on the pointier bullets.

"In your defense, I'd rather bend over for the whole god-fearing Marine Corps than touch whatever's left of yours again. I'm not sure my grip's still strong enough to stay hard."

He's got his back turned at this point, chin on one knuckle, the other hand outstretched with a weighing motion. The Thinker: catty cocksucking communist edition. "You did pay me back, though, didn't you? I bought a lot fine American fucks with all your money. Not to mention the free Russian p--"

It's not like I _flinched_. I just remember the last time I got set on fire - it wasn't a basket of kittens, okay. I realized that when Volgin turned that tarp into canvas flambe and rushed forward to reenact Quasi-Consensual Fraternization: Barbeque Bad Touch Edition Ocelot would be well-cooked meat on the other end. And that's not how I take it.

Yeah, I blew my cover. I grabbed Volgin's wrists and skidded him to a halt inches from Ocelot's throat. 

In like the same second I _and_ Volgin realize that I have no game plan we get hit with a cannon caliber water jet.

You ever been on an oil rig before? The fire suppression systems are no joke. Makes sense: something starts burning out of control there's nowhere to go - you either lemming yourself off the edge or get roasted. The duty staff drills daily on the hoses you'll find every ten, twenty feet all over most platforms - sometimes I watch in case it turns into an impromptu "no homo" wet t-shirt contest - and out here on unmanned plague Alcatraz, everything's full auto. 

For me it's like a sucker punch to the face with a birthday present - surprise, here's more fresh water for your parasites than you usually get in a month. Volgin, though, is howling like it's a surprise knee to the nuts.

He can teleport, though, right. He phases out, just like I do. Appears right behind Ocelot. And gets another fire hose facial.

Now I don't know if you've ever heard those industrial-strength fire suppression systems go off, but they're not quiet. There's a sound behind me I don't realize is Ocelot laughing until Volgin's been pinballed around the pit a good three or four more times. In my defense I don't think I've ever heard him laugh before at this point. Wry chuckle, maybe. 'Aw, shucks, boss. Hah hah. You're right - psychics, what a ludicrous notion.' It's not pleasant, or _happy_. He's right, though - this is pretty hysterical.

It's when Volgin gets trapped in a corner by sprinklers dousing him in so many gallons of flame retardant foam he looks like Miller after a shower in the old MSF men's locker room and Ocelot _still_ hasn't made a move that I start to wonder what _his_ game plan is, here.

He's gotta have one - I mean, he's the kind of guy who takes three passports, four currencies, and both types of condoms on a picnic. The safety systems don't have an unlimited supply of fresh water - when that runs out, they'll start sucking up salt water, and then sorry, sweetheart, but I gotta bail.

No, he's standing there, soaking wet, staring, and I can taste the malice and dread cocktail dripping off his skin.

Doesn't move when Volgin starts to get up.

So, I, you know, hauled off and kicked Volgin in the nuts.

What? What else was I going to do? My boss is the one who stands around gawking while communist fire zombies blow people up - I'm a woman of action.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Ocelot laughed too. Not like before. It's kind of cute, actually. For a middle-aged sodomite.

He joins in - when he spends all day playing with puppies and talking about flowers it's easy to forget he's fucking spetsnaz, but I think he knocked a good half of Volgin's teeth out with one boot to the jaw. Sure, when you're ganging up on somebody who shook off a tank-and-hospital threeway, you know you're not making any real progress but it's been at _least_ four or five years since I'd last beat someone to death against some cell bars and from the look on Ocelot's face, it's cathartic as hell.

Becomes pretty obvious pretty quickly why Volgin hates water: he can't use his powers when wet, and he can only heal his dry parts. Ocelot and me find a kind of curb stomp synergy - one of us hits him with a fifty-pound fire extinguisher, and the other kicks him back into the calf-deep pool of water, suds, and bullet parts. 

Then that sweet, sick little fucker sidles behind up to me with the same expression he had when he suggested I strangle Pequod's dick with my parasite-enhanced kegels, same tone of voice: "His body reflects and absorbs all external forces. But what would happen if--"

I know I told you it was loud. Ocelot's lips like, mouthing over my ear here.

"--that force came from inside him?"

What's that look for? I mean come on if somebody told you you could maybe put your arm inside somebody else, you'd try it, right?

I go for the forearm that's reaching out to snap Ocelot’s neck. Just a test. Takes a lot of energy to dissolve just the one part of my own body - hand and glove - but the parasites've got a temporarily unlimited supply of sunshine and fresh water right now. Bring it in line with Volgin's limb until I'm tasting it from the inside, and--

Let's see, how to describe shoving your hand into a part of somebody that isn't an orifice.

Imagine lukewarm jello full of raw meat. Slimy, stringy, with a layer of skin that gets bits under your fingernails when you try to rip it off. Volgin's got a loose sleeve of dangling muscles by the time I haul my fist out and, well, shit, I can't really blame him for shrieking like he's dying.

Been _there_.

Now Ocelot, Ocelot's grinning. There's a spray of blood from the arm across his face but he hasn't moved back an inch. He kinda strokes the exposed bone while the untethered fingers fall away.

Don't think Volgin's taking this lying down - there's enough steam in here for every bathhouse in Moscow. Pretty sure he'd boil Ocelot in it if he could, but I told you: I can be a clever bitch too, when I want to be.

Next time I go for the joint. That's just tendon, and I can pop it out and tear that gristle until the last strand snaps off, boot braced on his truck-sized chest. 

I did the same to his kneecaps next. A lot harder to burn shit when you're face down in ankle-deep water.

Mother Base's newest amputee barely manages to roll himself over before Ocelot's heel is on his face. At first I think he's going to break his nose again or spit on him, but that's not my boy: my boy puts all his weight down on Volgin's forehead and slowly, I mean - _agonizingly_ slow here - shifts it back to push his spur into Volgin's eye socket. Says something about Volgin wanting to see what this looks like. I think. That's probably not right. I know is when I touch his back Ocelot's sweat tastes as aroused as it is terrified.

I mean, sure, Volgin would have bucked Ocelot off and bashed his head open with his stumps if I wasn't there with my boot half-in his nuts again, but believe it or not this isn't my first kick at the torture caddy can.

By the time he pulls it out again Ocelot's spur is coated in white chunks and dripping lens--

Oh _now_ you want me to stop? Gratuitous? Hey, I warned you.

What do you want me to say? Ocelot kills Volgin.

Well, if you want to know _how_ you have to put your big boy panties on.

Long story short, Ocelot's getting _really_ into this. That water's not cold enough, is what I'm saying. He's winning the wet t-shirt contest by a mile and it's not _fear_ dripping off him anymore. It's distracting as hell and I'm trying to be a bro, trying not to shove him up against those bars or down on those cots and making his dick a little more comfortable.

So this time I _do_ remember that there's another man in the room. And he's not terrible-looking when you peel his mask off, maybe a 4/10 sober and 5/10 horny, I’ve had head from worse.

What do you mean, why would I do that? I just told you.

Besides, I don't even get a single lick out of him - he straight up bites me. Sure I heal it up in seconds but I don't have enough ten dollar words to stick on the end of fuck to describe how much that hurt. Like straddling a cheese grater. To this day I'm liable to smack a bitch if it looks like he's going to use his teeth.

And Ocelot's like, 'Tsk tsk, comrade, I thought you loved it when the audience joined in' - or something like that - and he shows me how it's done.

He's got one of those paint-stripping high pressure hoses slung over his shoulder. The ones you need multiple people to handle when they're turned on. He rams the nozzle into Volgin's mouth right through the hole he made in his teeth and keeps on shoving. "What's the matter Colonel? Too big for you? Should I stop?" Until Volgin's gagging and probably puking into the hose. 

"You don't break someone with fear, or pain. You break them with hope." Ocelot's just stroking his tear and snot-covered face, and starts telling him about when he tracked down someone called 'Vanya'.

Now it's, ah, more than a little fucked up even for my crowd. My old boss would've been proud. I'm not sure half of it is even physically possible - there's like one orifice too many and how do you make somebody die after months of horrible sepsis if you never broke their skin, just fucked them and poisoned them? Well whatever, we've established that you're kind of a pussy, so suffice it to say, it's bad. 

When Ocelot's done he turns on that fire hose. Walks away, and doesn't look back. Goes to the wall to shut off the water and starts the pumps to drain the Volgin soup.

Oh, don't think for a second I'm going to let him go unfucked, now. He's mussed and flushed and his wet, bloody clothes are hanging off him in all the right ways. One side of his shirt's come untucked and his soaked pants are hanging so low on those schoolboy hips I can see the diagonal ridge between his abs and his hipbone.

I spin him around by his belt and, yeah, he wants it. He wants it as bad as he did back in Room 101. So bad that instead of his normal slow, teasing touches when I yank his shirt open he jams his thigh between my legs and grinds my clit like he's trying to work through the bone - that when I move in closer, he bites. That's new. Well I guess it's new on both counts.

Trust me, he's hard, but I'm _throbbing_ now that I'm finally getting a real reaction out of him. And he's watching me like he'll rip my throat out if I make the wrong move.

Yeah, it's hot as hell.

Still, I could use a little less fear, a little more lust. I remember he liked getting his dick sucked - to be fair, who doesn't - so I wrestle his belt open. Get down on my knees. This time it's no fake out: I'm wet enough to inhale that rod, without the tongue bath you try to convince the guy is sexy but is really to clean all the skank off. We know you never wipe. We're lucky if you wash your goddamn hands. But Ocelot is so, so clean. Skin salt and alkaline precum. At first I think grey pube stubble's going to be a turn off, but he's as smooth as a stripper. Hah hah, shiiiit. Naughty boy indeed. Wonder how much he gets around.

Been a while since I've blown a guy. Might've bumped his tip with my teeth. Might've been a couple of false starts while I'm trying to remember how to stifle my gag reflex, but hey, by all means, help yourself to my throat - no, seriously, Ocelot grabs a fistful of my hair and starts fucking my face.

Look, I'm not saying it wasn't hot. The inability to swallow makes it messier than an amateur's first attempt to deepthroat a twelve inch cock and I might not breathe, but I'm pretty sure there bile in there as well as spit and precum dripping down my chin. I know, I know - I was the one who offered. But I'm going to spew and that is not my kink.

No, I have a better idea. Let's make this good for both of us.

I have coax him into it, like the last time. Only this time around he's not distracted by his iDroid - if I didn't have parasite powers I probably would've lost an eye. Ssh, ssh, I'll make this good for you. This time I don't waste time - as soon as I've got him on his back, I tear another tactical hole in my fishnets, shove my bikini aside and straddle that very hard, very slick dick.

Christ, it was nice. Seven, eight inches? Real ones. Would've struggled to take it if I wasn't so fucking horny, but here I am, the Grinch who stole Ocelot's straight virginity, and my pussy has expanded to twice its size and is better oiled than a Formula One engine.

He's such a good fuck. Easy on the eyes, nice rhythm - oh, he gets into it. Once I give him a taste of what I can do to him with my body and his eyes roll back and his back arches right off the ground, he gets into it. Puts one hand around my waist and the other cupping my crotch, fingers spread around his own cock. So he can press on my clit with his palm, tease my lips with his fingers, dig one right up past my rim while he thrusts up hard... I think I broke the un-machine-assisted land speed record to the vaginal orgasm. At least, to mine.

But he doesn't stop there. He just slows down. Keeps rocking those very nice hips, tensing those very nice abs. Barely moving. Until I crash back down twice as hungry for more.

It's on orgasm number three or four that I realize he hasn't come yet. Come to think of it, he never did last time either. With me, I mean. Didn't seem to have any trouble with Pequod - guess I just don't compare to virgin asshole. That ship sailed a _long_ time ago.

So I used the same technique as the last time I had a hard time getting a guy to nut: I choked him. With Ocelot, it's easy. Just grab a fistful of his scarf with both hands and make a loop that gets tighter and tighter the more he struggles.

It's nowhere near as well-received as the last time, let me tell you. When trying to break my fingers doesn't work he actually _pulls his gun out_.

Whoa whoa whoa. Settle down, babe. I won't hurt you.

I have no way of telling him this, though.

I stop, of course. I mean I'd probably survive it but I don't want to get my head blown off if I don't have to. We're still fucking, though; like, he's way too close to get soft or stop moving entirely and so am I. It's the second most fucked up Mexican standoff I've ever been in and the first most sexiest.

So I kiss him.

It's... weird. He seems as surprised by it as I am. Feels ten times more awkward than putting on a show to rile up Miller. He starts to react with the burning hot tongue thing, realizes he doesn't have to, and just lays there and lets me take the lead. Stares right at my face the whole time. Yeah, awkward.

But it gets the job done. He figures out what I'm trying to say. Holsters the revolver and lays back down for me, eases my hands off his scarf and puts them around his own neck instead. Nice. Guess he likes it rough. I can do rough.

I know how much pressure it takes to strangle someone and how much cuts off just enough air to make them see stars. Still, some people give you the same reaction: their eyes bug out and their lips turn blue and they start thrashing. Ocelot gets redder; his heels drag. There's a trickle of saliva from the same corner of his mouth I can see the tiniest hint of tongue at when he's almost passed out. His chest heaves; his thrusts get quick, erratic instead of languid. I'm so primed that feels _good_. Wonder what it felt like on the other end, when the big guy did it to him.

He doesn't start struggling again until near the end. His face goes slack; whatever noise he made when he came, I couldn't hear it over the drain pumps. A shame. His come tastes like my boss's e-cigs smell, with a hint of opiates and a lithium aftertaste.

I let him breathe again right after, but he still passes out on me.

Well, shit. I give myself a quick and dirty handjob - literally, I'm so well-fucked at this point I can stick my fist in there up to the knuckles - to take care of the blue balls and carry him over to the least soggy cardboard crates so he doesn't drown. Tuck his dick back into his pants, like a gentleman.

He's only out for a couple of minutes. When he comes to on my shoulder he smiles at me. Relaxed. Starting to look a little more like himself. He fishes out one of those same e-cigars from god only knows where and we trade hits for a while. He takes one, he blows one for me. We watch the pieces of his old boss get flushed down into the Indian Ocean.

No point in dancing around the subject: /What the fuck was that about?/

Ocelot doesn’t bat an eyelash. Only glances at my hands out of the corner of his eye. Doesn’t really look at me. /He was a really bad lay./

/That going in your report to Miller? He’ll love that./

/You’d be surprised. But no, I suspect our automatic fire suppression systems will have malfunctioned. I hit the wrong button trying to turn them off./

I’m not Miller. He owes me a better explanation than that. He knows it. /I suspected, like your former employer did, that our underage C-z-e-c-h escapee has been powering him. Which could mean trouble for us if the kid is still around./ He’s not wrong. We’ve both seen him. Beats me why nobody else has. /I needed to find out if he could still wake up. And if he could, well, the last thing I need is to wake up one night c-h-a-r-b-r-o-i-l-e-d by my old.../

His hands sort of trail off. That’s all right. He doesn’t need to bullshit me. He’s my kind of people. /...your old mark?/ 

He blinks once and breaks into the nastiest smirk I’ve seen out of him yet. Oh, yeah, we have his kind in XOF. Don’t think I don’t get it.

/Your first?/

He shakes his head. /I was sixteen. Well-trained by that point. It was a no-fail mission./

Tasked by who? The GRU? How does military intelligence train their honey pots? Fascinating stuff, but he's not in the mood.

/During the war V-o-l-g-i-n was NKVD. The old guard. Untouchable by the brass. Knew all dirtiest secrets - took part in K-a-t-y-n. Used to brag to me about how, when all the other officers were complaining about recoil sprains from thousands of executions, he used his fists. He told me he'd cracked the skulls of so many men my age he knew exactly how hard he'd have to hit me if he wanted me dead, based on my bone structure./

/Did he?/

/I'm still alive, aren't I? Of course, I doubt I'm as much fun unconscious, but I'm sure the look I had while wondering if I was going to wake up again every time he punched me was worth it. Decisions, decisions./

And here I thought being a dick trap involved wearing nice clothes and fucking around all day.

After a while I just gotta know: /You really do all that to ‘Ivan’?/

He shrugs. /Does it matter? I made him believe it./

Yeah, my old boss would’ve been proud.

There's not much to say after that. I assume Desperate Grizzly's got a way to contact Ocelot or Ocelot's keeping an eye on the time, because there's no line of sight to the helipad and the drain pumps are louder than Sally fucking a train. This becomes a relevant fact. Probably didn't help that we were pretty baked.

Because before we know it, Miller's on the walkway right above us, squealing something like _What the FUCK just happened here?!_ , _What the fuck is WRONG with you?!_ and, naturally, _Do you know how much this is going to COST?_. Whatever.

He's being a buzzkill and I can tell Ocelot's not in the mood for this shit either. So I phase on over, pick up that big hose, and turn the water back on again.

In my _defense_ it _was_ hilarious. He squawked and flailed like goddamn chicken thrown off a roof. I thought, at worst, it was gonna knock him over. That he was going to get wet. I did _not_ expect him to get blasted right off the bridge with whiplash and a concussion. I guess those are supposed to reach like a hundred feet high.

Couldn't say I would've bothered to catch him if Ocelot hadn't moved to do it first. It's a good ten yard drop; Miller's going to break every bone in Ocelot's body at that speed. That'll undo all my hard work, I so step in and take one for the team - still enough fresh water around that I'll heal up quick. But does Miller thank me for dislocating both of my fucking arms for him? No. He lays there moaning and shivering until Ocelot comes up behind him and sticks a needle in the back of his neck.

Huh. That was brazen. 

What’s my boy got planned?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **flinch**  
>  _verb_ (military): to overreact to a situation out of fear (esp. of punishment).
> 
> "The timing they gave me was 0900 but I flinched too hard and showed up at 0830. We didn't even start until ten and now I either look like a suckup or a shitpump."
> 
> Fun detail from MGSV: if you shoot Volgin's body when it's out on the Quarantine platform, it'll twitches.


	7. Lean

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to sweet Lia and the delicious fruit for kicking me into posting this instead of waiting for work to die down, which might be never.

I'd say that was the beginning of our friendship.

I mean, you're not really friends with somebody until you help them move a body, right? Everybody knows that. Before that he was - I don't know, a coworker. With benefits. One of those coworkers you like. And would be down to fuck at the office Christmas party.

I'm responsible tossing all the Volgin parts that didn't make it down the drain into the ocean. Then hosing off the supplies. The walls. The floor. Miller's keycard opens everything; there's a whole fist jammed up in one of the outflow pipes. When I can't bash it through with a mop handle I figure out I can shoot it into manageable pieces with one of Ocelot's revolvers. I've always been a natural problem solver. Not sure how Ocelot explained away bullet holes in a drain pipe, but that's not my job.

Ocelot's responsible for all things Miller. Seems like the shot knocked him out; Ocelot catches him to keep him from giving himself another concussion, keeps him from drowning in the drain puddle, wipes him down methodically so it looks like the worst that's happened to him is a bad fall and a bath. He does at least one of those things a couple times a week, so he should be familiar. Not the one you'd hope.

At first I think Miller's awake again because I can hear his breathy whinge. Don't fall for that Benjamin McDonalds shit, that's his Full Metal Jacket impression. The real guy sounds like a pubescent boy whose mom took his favourite spunk sock away.

But the parasites are telling me it's Ocelot's lips that are moving, not Miller's. That Miller's eyes are half-open, and after a couple minutes Miller starts repeating the same words.

I gotta admit it: I'm curious. Ocelot's gone from circus sideshow weird to European art film on an acid trip weird.

I ask him what he's doing. He's just, kinda, sitting there on a plastic crate with Miller between his knees slumped up against it. Leaning down next to his shoulder while Miller stares off into space.

"Telling him what happened."

In his own voice. I don't need to sign 'what the fuck' when I've got eyebrows.

/We recall in images, but we think in words. Usually in our native tongues, unless we've been immersed in another language for a very long time./

Right, right: no idea how good Ocelot's Japanese is. With him it depends who he's talking to whether it's sah-kay or sackee.

/So what happened?/

Ocelot whispers something into Miller's ear and he goes totally blank. I'm like, damn, I'm gonna have to get him to teach me that trick. /Does it matter? You're not going to tell anyone./

No, I'm not, but my boss understands me without words. That's not a threat - we're pals now, like I said - just an observation.

For real, he needs to cut the bullshit. At least a little. I get it. I get him. I know what games he has to play to do his job. I don't need to know what other angles he's working - all I need to know is he's loyal to my boss. We established that when he proved he was willing to die for him. It's all good.

Besides, he's already said too much. If the late Communist Crab Bait was his mark, not his CO, he didn't just happen to be there during Snake Eater. He worked Snake Eater.

So did my old boss.

Let's start simple: /What happened to Colonel Crispy?/

In Miller's voice, Ocelot says: "What happened to the body?"

In his own voice: "It dissolved. That's why he was so afraid of water, I suppose."

Come on. /He got rained on before. That doesn't make sense./

Nasal sigh. Eye roll. Miller's voice: "There was rain in Dhekelia. Snake dumped a water tower on his head. That doesn't make any fucking sense."

Ocelot's voice, soothing: "Apt bondage aesthetics aside, that was the purpose of the full body, full face suit, I suspect. To protect him from incidental contact with it. Unfortunately, the pressure of the hoses must have forced it under that barrier. Or submersion did. Consider him water-resistant, not water-proof."

I have to laugh. /Now that is half-assed./

/A b-o-n-a-f-i-d-e Made-in-the-USSR solution./

/Shit, if he came to XOF back in the 70s we would've covered him in some garbage bags held together with duct tape./

/Would've held up against the water better than the g-i-m-p suit. Back in the 70s the Diamond Dogs would've draped him in the v-e-n-e-e-r of corporate respectability and the insinuation of heroism by proxy./

I'm fumbling my way through 'that's a real fancy way of saying 'an over the pants handy from some guy who once sucked Big Boss's dick'' when the man himself starts to groan and Ocelot quashes his grin in favour of Miller's perennial PMS face.

Ocelot, as Miller: "Whatever. What were _you_ doing in a restricted area with the Cipher bitch?"

Ocelot, as himself: "Target practice."

/Target practice./ As excuses to sneak off with Mother Base's most eligible human rights violation go, that one's pretty lame.

Miller's voice, deadpan: "You forged paperwork - used flight time and fuel - to go shoot some guns alone with the boss's fourth most fuckable battle buddy."

He's got that liquor-burned, nagging wife rasp down to _perfection_. 

Ocelot: "She needs more training. And I thought _you_ could use more time alone with Snake."

This is when Miller himself cuts in, and it's so uncanny it makes my skin crawl. I mean, more than usual. There's no pause, no stutter - he starts talking like it's been a two-way conversation this whole time, eyes still half-open and staring straight through me. "I'm glad you're taking such an unselfish interest in my relationship with the boss, but maybe _he_ could train with her, and _you_ could do your fucking job."

"You know as well as I do that Snake's never been much of a sniper." /He's waking up. This--/ Ocelot waves to the freshly hosed deck _appreciatively_ /--is what he'll recall./

Well, oh fuck - I'm about to redo my bra knot and do a better job of thigh wiping - but shakes his head. Loosens his scarf so the red marks poke out a little. /Yeah, the boss can't shoot for shit./ I sign.

/No patience, no hands./ Then Ocelot's adjusting Miller's clothing, who blinks rapidly. “You’re right, we need to start putting more blow in his e-cigar.” Looks from me, to Ocelot.

“Not sure it works that way, Miller. Or you’d be able to hit the broad side of a---”

So, straight out of nowhere, Miller kisses him.

I'm not talking a peck for your grandma or even a little sloppy third date saliva swapping, I'm talking 100% uncensored Japanese lesbian porn-style open-mouthed, tongue so far down Ocelot's throat you'd need the jaws of life to remove it. Hair-pulling, audible nose-breathing, eye-closing, visible nipple-hardening through wet shirts - and I swear to Supply Side _Jesus_ Miller started it. I've replayed this in my mind enough times just, you know, to be sure.

They go from zero to mach-10 at the speed of sound and their sonic boom is the two of them hitting the floor puddle. Ocelot's on top but Miller's got Ocelot's shirt untucked - all the way, I mean - one of his knee wedged between Ocelot's legs, and his arm's crammed into Ocelot's pants all the way up to the elbow. In a minute or two there's so much moaning and grinding they might as well be fucking with their clothes on.

At first I'm thinking: wow, manwhore extraordinaire here's really outdone himself this time. Then after a couple of more minutes: wow, they really are going to damp hump each other into the deck. That's not an 'I'm really enjoying this tender couch make out session' red they're turning, that's an 'oh shit you caught me jerking off in the shower ten seconds from busting a nut' red.

I can't blame Ocelot for being distracted. This _is_ pretty distracting. Between the sucking pumps and the sucking face this Cold War porn parody makes _me_ almost miss the sound of Pequod's rotor blades. 

I can't say it's not tempting to sit back watch what happens when my boss finds out he's getting cucked. Maybe seeing Miller ride his cowboy bestie as hard as he did Zero's wheelchair back in the 70s will be enough to make him see his boyfriend in a new light.

But, hell, Ocelot looks into it. He had my back the last time me and my boss needed personal time. Call me a bitch, slut, liar, and killer for hire, but I'm no blade.

I don't know how to give my boss the waveoff aside from holding Pequod at gunpoint, but I know Ocelot'll know. I give his shoulder a polite tap and point to the incoming husband helo. Time to break for the screen door out back.

Wasn't expecting him to dump Miller back into the puddle and jog-limp that tight, tiny ass of his back up the ladder. From the dumb-erstruck look on his face, Miller wasn't either.

When I see his fly's undone and his hard, throbbing microdick's flopping around I start laughing.

I remember this part pretty well: I was expecting him to flail and spit and maybe even whip his pistol out as a metaphor for his impotent rage. He knows _exactly_ as well as I do that I could phase out of my cell and strangle him in his sleep any time I wanted. Diseased bitch. Cipher cunt. Pot, charcoal. Or maybe that fake black, blacker than black that really fancy computer screens can do up these days.

Instead he's got this feral little sneer with scrunched up eyebrows. "So how's the sex?" 

I have no idea what to say to this. I'm intrigued.

"Unconventional, but you can't get it out of your mind?" Oh. Target practice. "He does favours for you too, doesn't he? Not just small ones - ones with consequences for him. Ones that take the kind of effort you've never done anything to deserve."

So, what? They broke up because Ocelot was too nice to him? Come the fuck on, what is this, a cautionary tale from your conservative spinster aunt against ending up a cat lady? 

"And soon, you'll rely on him. Trust him, despite your better judgement. You'll have no choice - without him you'd be ruined."

No, no, he's telling me to stay away from the bad boys. Pssh. Everyone knows they're the best fucks. Them and the crazy ones.

"You'll start to believe you have something reciprocal--," this is where he starts ugly-laughing,"--but oh no, there's nothing mutual about it. You are less than the dogshit on his bootheels to him, and he will scrape you off the second you become inconvenient."

Hey, I'm finally getting the goods on their break up. What'd Ocelot do, stand him up at Western-themed fetish party? 

"You know he's a GRU major. Not was. Is. I had to cover his smack-stained paperwork while he was off invading Afghanistan. He's been their chief interrogator for years. Decorated. The locals have their own badly translated nickname for him, just like you." It's less ugly-laughing and more wheezing-keening now. "So when you budget black ops bumblefucks handed me over to the Reds I was _overjoyed_. Ocelot'll find out. He _can't_ not - they'll report my capture to him directly. He'll cross a few 'i's, dot a few 't's, forge a few signatures, and I'll be out of here by dinner time."

Yep, those are the wide-blown mirror pupils of somebody flash-backing. "I. Waited. Days. _Knowing_ he'd come. He's just, delayed. You shit-eating kid fuckers gave him trouble in Cyprus. He'll be fine. I'll make it. I told him Snake was the priority. He's _coming_. One week and I knew he was dead. I _knew_ it. That was the only possible reason he'd leave me sitting in my own shit while maggots were eating me alive from the stumps inward - I worked with him for a FUCKING DECADE and he RAN A HUNDRED FUCKING MILES for me just to make sure I wasn't captured, he's _dead_ and all I could do was pray he'd gotten Snake out alive. He'd find a way to tell Snake where I was. He would. You know him."

Ah, fuck. He's crying. I never know what to do when guys cry. Girls - just hug 'em and buy 'em some ice cream, we're not very complicated.

"Ten days. He was on a boat for ten days. So that Snake could work out. That was his excuse. Work out enough to be mission ready. Let the legend come back to life. Couldn't have sent Snake back to Mother Base to do that while he flew over to botch a prisoner transfer. No, no, no - Snake's _reputation_ , his esteem among our men and the other PFs, that's worth _half my body_."

Come to think of it Miller probably looked about the same as he did to the Russkies right about then: teeth gritted like he's trying to snarl while he weeps. "Ocelot didn't do any of that for me. Any of those things, for all of those years. He did it for Snake. That is the _one_ thing he cares about, and if you're no longer in Snake's best interests he'll drown you so that Snake can step on your corpse and not get his feet wet."

There's something that's just so goddamned pathetic about a dripping wet grown man angry sobbing while he tries and fails to stuff his wood back into his pants one-handed that I can only watch and chuckle for so long before I help him out. The fall and the water hose banged him up pretty bad; besides, I can't phase the whole way back to the command platform, so we're stuck here until somebody comes to get us.

Not sure how that turned into a handjob, to be honest. 

 

Of course we got back. Ocelot sent somebody for us. He's detail-oriented like that. My boss was there to carry Miller off the helo and across the threshold to his quarters where you could hear the tantrum Miller threw all the way in R&D. Ocelot is a useless, bungling dipshit with his face crammed up sore-pocked parasite pussy who set off the automatic fire suppression systems and didn't know where the shutoff was because he's an inbred communist come dumpster who doesn't know how to change the filter in a motherFUCKING COFFEE MACHINE. They've lost an invaluable research specimen because of it.

He really sounds like he believes every word of it. _Wild._

Anyway you can hear shit break from about as far away as Miller's screeching, and my boss looks like he'd just watched his dog die when he trudges on out of there.

We head straight to Africa and we don't come back for weeks.

There's this canyon, you see. Right on the edge of our AO. Still inside it, so my boss doesn't get nagged about stepping on somebody else's lawn, but tucked so far away in the corner that there's never any action. It's got a river, and a waterfall. Sometimes rare birds my boss likes.

We're running low on food, and my boss doesn't want to radio in for supplies, because there's a 50/50 chance Miller'll be on the other end. 

So we hunt. Didn't take him for the type; the Animal Conservation platform'd make you think he was a paint-toting PETA cunt, but nah, he's got no problem mercy killing the old and the lame. Bullet through the brain's much quicker than being eaten alive by non-human predators, he tells me.

Nature is beautiful, he says. But it isn't kind. That heron over there eats the chicks of the other birds. That pelican there swallows them whole and they suffocate alive in its stomach acids. Somehow that part never makes it into Ocelot's Attenborough Hours. 

If I could talk I'd tell him about the time I tried boiled camel spider back in XOF and couldn't get the hairs out of my tongue for weeks. 

We're shooting, right. My boss has some kind of goat or gazelle or jackalope or something lined up in his sights. I've got my arm around all the rippling muscles in his back while his breathing slows.

He's a natural. Nerves of titanium. Fine motor control for days. Sometimes take a second to focus with his right eye; probably a leftie before the crash.

Before a lot of things.

I can tell he's about to take the shot by the way the scent of wormwood smoke fades; I lean in to chase it and accidentally touch his forehead with mine. We stay like that for--

Anyway, he misses the shot.

The parasites pick up what he must've seen: that limping jackalope's got jackalope-lets. They're all fucked now.

He runs the radio off. I'm thinking: time to bring my A-game. Really wishing I had my mood music. Do I move first? Does he?

"Were you there in '75?"

No, fuck _me_.

Nah, I wasn't. Not much call for an infiltrator or a sniper. Aside from the dive teams who set charges that whole op was loud, loud, loud. Besides, I was baby black ops back then.

That's not the point, though, is it. 

"We had minimal manning that night. Just duty staff. Critical operations. Non-ambulatory patients."

He hasn't moved away from me. 

"The duty staff put up a fight. Got Kaz out, but that was pretty much it. Cost twelve men to do it. You went room to room executing the rest, just like Dhekelia."

No, he hasn't moved away from me, but hurt in his eye sets us a hundred miles apart. 

"Were you there when Kaz was captured?"

Again: no. Shame, but, I was doing the workups for Cyprus. Last-minute pinch-hitter for a buddy of mine who had to bail at the last second. Not thrilled about missing the chance to take my own unproverbial pound of flesh out of Cipher's rentboy, stoked about being the one to strangle his paper mache proxy hero in the crib.

Still isn't the point.

Point is I, thirsty dumbfuck that I am, have deluded myself into believing all that shit about our pasts not mattering. About us being born anew, brothers-in-arms. No borders; only now, and the future. But while my boss may have forgiven, he’s never gonna forget: “Kaz” - and my boss - have every reason to hate my guts, and if I don't lay off...

Anyway, my boss silently smokes himself into a dope coma and that's how I wound up benched in sickbay for a week the second time: wrestling a jackalope baby out of the jaws of a hyena so I could Fulton it back to Mother Base.


	8. Breathe

When we got back from Africa Miller'd found something new to froth himself up into a jizz-and-spittle milkshake about: the kids are 'conspiring' against us. You know, the war orphans we could've just dumped off on some NGO or off the side of the helicopter on the way back to Mother Base if one of them wasn't my boss's would-have-been abortion. The ones Miller himself refuses to do anything useful with.

The first time I overheard Ocelot and Miller argue about it I think my eyes rolled back so hard I needed retinal surgery. It's not like the solution's not simple: send 'em back to Africa if they're causing that much trouble. Back to their tribes or their towns or their fucking relatives. But no, my boss thinks they'll be in more danger there. Miller wants to give them a chance at a 'better life' here at Big Daddy Warbucks' Primary School and Petting Zoo. 

Seemed to me like letting them run away solved all our problems.

Anyhow, this particular misadventure started when Ocelot called me out:

/Oh? And here you almost got yourself chemically preserved over one of their toys./ Ocelot's hanging out here in our hidey hole watching me try to fix my tape. The Billy Idol one. Yeah, I've had it for weeks now, but that shit is twisted up worse than the Jordanian knot. /You did know your old boss was experimenting on them, didn't you./ No question inflection on that one. /Guilty conscience?/

Maybe I threw the Billy Idol ball at him. In his direction. Ocelot goddamn well knows why I did it. Same reason I got my arm half-bitten off saving tasty animal babies. 

He's all smug smiles. /I know the feeling./ Then he picks up the shiny plastic clusterfuck I've been worrying at for weeks and it just, starts coming apart in his hands. /If you can't find an end, unravel in a consistent direction./

Listen, I know he's got way better things to do than pick at my thirst ball; look, it's not that what Miller said's got me rattled. It's that you _should_ return favours for friends, right? Who knows, maybe if Miller'd been assed to do anything back for Ocelot he would've spent less time as a communist blowup doll with permanently removable parts.

/Need help?/ There's no way Ocelot's letting Miller shit the bed on this, too.

He glances up at me; gives me the same look you'd give a stash of hobo clothes you kicked over out of curiosity only to discover there's a couple bucks inside. /Spy on them. Find out what they're planning./

Easier signed than done, when they've got their own wall-phasing ghost pal. 

It's pretty trivial to distract the rest of them: you can't help but notice there are no girls allowed in their cannon fodder clubhouse. I don't know if they were treated to 'em in Africa - from the 80s onward, I mostly worked Afghanistan - but either way, you don't use child soldiers because they're worth a damn, you use them because they _aren't_. They're replaceable, malleable, easy to manipulate, and scared shitless of adults. They've all fallen in line behind White Savior on training wheels because he sometimes succeeds in sucker punching the combat E-Rank kitchen staff when they tell him he's up past his bedtime.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not one of those grass on the field, play ball types. I want that field to have had a good decade or two to flourish, preferably manicured to the point you don't go losing the balls in it but I'm not so choosy if the bat's nice enough. And the diamond's got all the right angles--

Where was I? Right, right. I've watched those kids try to sneak a peek at me in the shower more times than I've heard Pequod stammer when he says "coming in hot" after that threesome. I might not be a CIA-certified cocksucker like Ocelot but I figure I've got ways of making them talk.

What? _No_. What the _fuck_ did I _just_ say? I mean like a kiss or a nip slip or a chance to see me naked or touch a boob I am _not_ a kidfucker, Jesus Howitzer Christ. What's wrong with _you_? I would never touch a dick a day under 15.

So now that we've got that covered, let's talk about the flaw in my plan: jailbait ginger. Either his balls haven't dropped yet, or he's got really bad taste. The other boys seem pretty amenable to having bare titty tutor come help them with their homework, but the second I show up the little hovering cockblock does too and they won't say a word. I try to talk to _him_ , a friendly chat from one hazmat-worthy bio-experiment to another, and he shoots me with a water gun. Filled with salt water.

I can't wring his incorporeal neck so I report back to Ocelot who laughs at me like a dickwad until there are tears in his eyes.

/It's all right. Seduction is a highly technical skill that requires years of training and a thorough mastery of the human p-s-y-c-h-e./ I think he was giving DD a bath or something; I remember drinking dog water when DD shook himself dry all over us. /Next time you might want to run your plan by me, though./

I ask him if he's got advice for me or if he just wants to keep jacking himself off to the only man in his life who'll be there when he wakes up in the morning, and he's like: /You know, they like you, Quiet. Every thought about spending some time with them? I'll take care of your rival in love./

Aside from showing them how to clean the AKs Miller took away when they got grounded or how to do that dual inverted mag thing with a couple elastic bands and a roll of duct tape, I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing with them. At first. Turns out it's real easy: Baltic bondage baby can go from cell to cell but he can't smuggle physical objects around. I take them harmless shit: paper, crayons, Miller's weird Asian candy made from durians and rhinoceros horn, probably, tapes with innocuous bubblegum pop that they listen to on repeat until if it was a real record I'd spin it right round and smash it over my knee. Nobody can tell my art from their art so it's the perfect crime.

Eventually this garners me an audience with the Lad of the Flies himself. 

No, really, I get an invitation written in crayon somebody's tried to draw a white snake over a black smear a couple of times, pressed so hard they nearly broke through the paper, then gave up and wrote "White Mamba" in Kikongo at the bottom.

I shit you not, he's _staged_ his bedroom when I show up, too. So that the mirror's behind him and the chair is in the middle with the shiv he made out of a mess spork on his belt. He's sitting on it with his legs crossed in that way that makes guys either look gay or European.

"I don't approve of you preserving the sentimental relics of their past--" Wait, can you do voice modulation on this thing? What's the most obnoxious British voice you've got? I'm not talking, 'knows where all the best curry restaurants are calls you mate and makes you want to pretend you give a shit about soccer' British, I'm talking unironically uses the term "swimming costume" British.

Oh. You know what he sounds like. Okay then.

Hey if you've got voices can you do a real Russian one for Ocelot? 'In Soviet Russia, tactical advantages offer nyet engravings.'

Killjoy.

"--But I see now that you were trying to signal your allegiance with us. You are my father's prisoner too, after all." I'm not sure prisoner's the right word for somebody who could fuck off in a cloud of dust over the mountains to Kandahar before anybody could blink, but okay there, sport. "As such I will extend you an offer. Join us in our something something Kindergarten Kingdom where we'll all stay up past curfew and never brush our teeth or shower."

So, I might not have been paying too much attention to the Preteen's Guide to The Revolution. It's when Dances With Peter Pan starts to stammer I tune back in.

"Be... besides, we'll require _women_ in our new country," he stutters while doing the world's least admirable job of pretending he's only staring at my gitch because it's eye-level, "And I _assure_ you, I am _twice_ the man my father is."

That'd be awkward; I'm pretty sure he's more like half or a quarter, but like I said, I have markedly less interest in watching a twelve-year-old get his dick out than my old boss did.

I lean in. So that my tits are roughly face-height. Slowly write PROVE IT on his bare chest with my finger. 

He looks more like he's about to cry for his mom than make a move any time in the next decade, so I leave him to deal with his pint-sized boner.

Anyway, no shit, they plan on stealing Sally. White Mama's Boy is going to capitalize on the fact that he's a six-year-old-sized twelve-year-old to cram himself into Huey's child abuse cockpit, they're going to take the one helo pilot who spends his mornings in an earth-shattering speed comedown hostage, and they're going to start their own free nuclear powered state where nobody ever does laundry again.

I go back to my cell to tell Ocelot their scheme's got about a nun's chance of keeping her v-card in hell of happening, and he's got his feet kicked up on my bench, leaning against the wall. Reading a book - out loud, I mean. In some eastern European language, in a tone so soothing it makes the bars vibrate; not sure if my boss would've fallen asleep or bust a nut right there.

Only for a second, then I see the floating brat sitting on the ceiling and I swear he flips me off under his sleeves before he disappears.

/Bedtime stories? Really?/

/He can't read his mother tongue./ He does this leg crossing-uncrossing thing that'd make Sharon Stone blush and goes from sexless schoolteacher to fuckbuddy in a split second. I do tell him about the plan, so he can serve Miller humble pie for being impotent about yet another thing in his life.

But first I see if I can't get my tongue further down his throat than Miller could.

I mean, of course I can.

 

Imagine my surprise when their scheme goes off without a hitch.

Miller sounds completely blindsided; my boss, saddened; Ocelot, terse that he could have prevented it all if only Miller'd let him "interrogate" a middle schooler earlier.

You're fucking kidding me, right? I don't think I'd've swallowed this horsepiss even if I _hadn't_ helped Ocelot bust up the pre-pubescent Great Escape weeks ago. Ocelot needed to let me in on the game, like, yesterday.

I tell him as much the next time we get together for bullet brunch in our hidey hole and when I get the /Now why should I/ I'm expecting I play the only card I've got that isn't getting his dick wet, or wringing his neck:

/Or we won't be on the same team./

If I let my boss know Ocelot cost him that hardware - those _kids_ \- on purpose, there'll be questions. And if I tell Miller, trouble in platonic paradise will be the least of his concerns.

Ocelot takes threats way better than I do. He just, casually, no big, fishes the unwound, re-cased result of my weeks of tearing at that desperation tangle and tosses the tape to me.

/Oh? You and I are on the same team, are we?/

Hell yeah. We are.

/Don't say that lightly./

Boy, I don't say anything I don't mean.

That gets him grinning. Head straight for your sanity shelter, Ocelot Logic Incoming, danger close:

/Our seizure of Sahelanthropus was far, far too public. Not only was it noted by observers in Afghanistan, but I know for a fact our very own Cipher spy has leaked it to his masters./

Speaking of Huey, what's his damage? Life as a greasy incel t-rex aside. I know my old boss used him to "leak" misinformation about Sally's capabilities to them for ages.

/They have his son. Tried and true tactic, old as time./

The plan, then?

/We wait. Until we've got a plausible excuse to dump Emmerich in the ocean. Until those kids take Sahelanthropus off the grid. When we take her back, we do it right. Quiet./

Now I like the sound of that.

Still, now that we're friends and all, he's got it coming: /After Volgin, I didn't think quiet was your MO./

He takes a full second just to blink.

/You're right. Waste of an asset. If only we'd bothered to attend Miller's Big Boss Is Watching You Practice Fire Safety lectures./

I laugh - because it's a joke, right? And sarcasm is my favourite flavour, even if I'm still getting the hang of doing it with my hands. But something about 'waste of an asset' gets to me. You learn to listen to your gut in my line of work or you don't last long - handwringing over asset retention's something Miller would do, not Ocelot. Ocelot takes tactical losses for the end game.

/Yeah we lost out big time on the chance to meet a literally flaming homosexual up close and personal the next time he woke up./

He blinks again, and now I recognize that expression: it's been a while, but he's about to bluescreen on me. /I'm sure that if he could've woken up again, he would've before becoming part of the oceanic circle of life./

Wait, has Miller somehow smuggled cameras down here? Did I hallucinate the whole exploiting elemental weaknesses for rape revenge fiasco? 

Ocelot stonewalls me until he stops responding altogether. He slumps over glassy-eyed and while my first instinct is to make him more comfortable, get him relaxed and let him sleep it off just like before, it's not like before. Before, his pulse was slow and his breathing was steady. Now his heart's got a machine gun’s rate of fire on full auto and there's foamed up saliva on corners of his lips. I don't know about you, but that's not sexy to me.

This seems bad. I think: fuck it, I'll drag him out of here and back to the Medical platform. Only he's coherent enough to realize that's what I'm doing, and he struggles, "No no no those aren’t my people," or something like that.

Shit. I'll get... my boss? My boss's first aid is pretty fucking first rate, he'll know what to do, but Ocelot fights that idea so hard he leaves bruises on my hands for the next day and a half. "Don't don't don't don't, not Snake, not now, I can't," etc.

I know how cauterize a wound or splint a break same as anyone but I don't know what do when somebody's gone full seizure mode and his colour's starting to go from white guy who doesn't tan well white to late shock from blood loss white and standing around dickless while a buddy swallows his tongue and dies just isn't my style.

Anyway, so that's how we ended up in Miller's room. 

On paper he's asleep, but I'm pretty sure all the Diamond Dogs have figured out by now that what that really means on the schedule is "marinating in my own depression funk and crying while I masturbate". Seriously. His room's got the only window blocked out with a cardboard flipchart, the week-old plates of food he hasn't been assed to carry back up the stairs are the least disgusting tripping hazards, and he's wrapped up in a pile of blankets with his clothes on working on next week's rota with the lights off. It reeks worse than my boss's sneaking suit rolled D-horse dung. Hard liquor is evaporating from so many open containers I'm getting a contact drunk.

I put Ocelot on Miller's bed because that's literally the only place to put him. The couch is covered in boxes full of tax returns from 1983, aborted ties, and snack wrappers.

Miller's hiss at seeing us turns into a nasally sigh-whine, and _now_ he's all business: tilting Ocelot's head back. Looking into his eyes. Asking him: "What are you on? What do you need?" before he fishes a bottle of pills out of his beside drawer and puts one under Ocelot's tongue to dissolve. 

It's weird because I was expecting to get read the riot act. For taking him here instead of the doc. For coming in here in the first place. Instead Miller's acting like this is just another day at the office, and I've got a whole load of questions about '76 through '83 all of a sudden.

First and foremost: what the fuck?

Miller gives me a one-shoulder shrug. "Electrocution can cause permanent brain damage."

And here I thought it was LSD. Says a lot about Miller that he picks that up on the first try when I mime it.

"Could be."

Either way, whatever it is he gave Ocelot, it calms him down. He's got that sexy spaced out look instead of that shivering strung out look; he tries trailing a couple of fingers up Miller's oversized thigh; Miller bats them away. I try trailing a couple of fingers up Ocelot's nicely toned thigh, Miller bats them away. Even though the poor guy was starting to make some pretty encouraging noises.

So that's how it's gonna be. We're going to sit around in awkward silence until we're sure Ocelot's not going to crash. Playing the Let's Not Talk About The Thing We Did game.

Combined with Let's Pretend We Both Wouldn't be Getting Laid Right Now if The Other One Wasn't Here game, it’s pretty shit. Miller's "ignoring" me but he's been stuck on the same time slot in his rotation for past ten minutes; he's got a slanted side-eye on Ocelot's bare abs and my boobs and a tent in his boxer shorts. And me, hell, I can't hide anything in this outfit. Consider me about to add another stain to the lube skidmarks and dried spunk on Miller's sheets.

At some point, we decide drinking is a good idea.

It's a bad idea.

Drinking leads to spilling - especially when it's skin-absorbed - and spilling leads to spilling on Ocelot. And spilling on Ocelot leads to licking up gin off Ocelot's very smooth, very cut torso. And licking gin up off Ocelot's torso leads to trading shots off his abs, which leads to Ocelot getting hard, which leads to Miller getting catty about all this again all of a sudden and before I know it I've got him pinned on his back while he tries to "wrestle" me off.

I put wrestle in quotes there because you can't really "wrestle" somebody with four limbs when you've got two it's like Miller trying to do jumping jacks. Whichever limb of theirs you try to trap or disable they've got a back up, and you don't. Which isn't to say I wouldn't have kicked his ass before he got downsized, but at this rate it's hilarious he's even trying. 

That said I now need eight showers; this isn't going to work for me as a time-killer and my boss'll be angry if I choke him out with his tie too hard, so I decide I'll play it Miller's way. Push one of those pills down his throat until he swallows it.

It only takes a couple of minutes until he's nice and relaxed. His sunglasses got knocked off somewhere along the way; you can't really make out his pupils with his spoiled milk eyes, but they have gone soft and unfocused. He stops trying to punch me in the tit and starts stroking one instead.

I don't really know what to say here: Miller's nasty but he's really, really easy, and there's something about grinding down on his little dick on a bed that still smells like my boss that makes my clit throb. 

I'm not fucking him; just sort of palming and squeezing his cock while I'm getting off on thrusting down on one of his hipbones. Can't help but notice fingermarks from what's gotta be a bionic on their lube bottle. A used condom bursting with come draped over a boot by the bed. Brown hairs all over his pillow. Surgical scars on his taint. All the while Miller's moaning and whimpering like he loves it.

Not the kind of guy who just lays there and takes it, though.

After pushing my bra up off my tits his grabby fingers find their way down to my ass and for weirdly long time he strokes the back of one thumb over the fabric covering my holes. Nothing more. Just traces the outlines of my labia until I'm like, yeah, that's annoying. But when I reach back to push his hand away he jams two fingers into my snatch and holy shit I'm sensitive now. He hooks them up and in, does the same thing until it's almost boring, then starts thrusting them fast and hard and holy shit: I tense up so much when I come I get a leg cramp. He doesn't stop, just gets harder and deeper and harder and faster and deeper until it feels like I'm going to piss myself. 

By the time I'm totally done I'm totally boneless. And Miller, Miller is _drenched_ in sweat and come; there's so much pussy juice on his hips it looks like he had an accident.

I'm done but he's not. Miller untangles us - I mean, I let him - and rolls over to a groggily groping Ocelot. Tugs down his already unzipped pants.

I am woefully unprepared for how hot it is to see Ocelot's asshole get slicked up with my come. I already know he loves prostate stimulation; I'm not surprised to see him writhe when Miller gives him the same kind of handjob. I am surprised by how much his dick drips when Miller starts eating him out. So much of it smears off his stomach when he squirms that it's hard to tell which stains are mine and which are his.

Miller can't keep Ocelot from reaching for his own cock - the one arm thing, again - but I can. I can pin his hands while his back arches right up off the bed. Until he's got his legs spread so wide in that way he can because he's so goddamn flexible what he's aching for might as well be plastered all over the base like Miller's paranoia posters. 

Miller gets him off with his mouth instead. His face is splattered with come at this point; it's soaked through his beard and hanging in threads off his chin - it's a good look for him.

But Miller, Miller just wipes that face with his empty sleeve, puts his douchey sunglasses back on, and jerks himself off smugly.

Uh, well, the rest of that day's kind of a blur. I might've figured those pills looked pretty fun and tried to see if I couldn't mix a couple up with alcohol and pour it on myself. All I know is that when my boss came back there were sheets, pillows, and a couple of shirts stuffed through Miller's tiny window and thrown into the ocean, a couple of hours spent hiding Ocelot in the bathroom while my boss couldn't quite figure out why 'Kaz' couldn't get it up for him. Some tongue-clucking about Miller's drinking problem and a tender massage that dragged on so long I started rubbing one out out of sheer boredom later, I finally got the chance to smuggle my sex-stinking high-as-a-kite partner-in-crime back to his own room.

I remember when Miller came by to check on him later that night Ocelot was finally asleep.

And I remember the next morning they were right back at each other's throats.

 

You seem to know an awful lot about our major operations, so I'm guessing you already know what happens next. The second outbreak.

Why didn't they send _me_ in? Pay some fucking attention here: I breathe through my _skin_. Short of sealing me up in a full-body ziploc bag there was no way they could keep an airborne pathogen out of my system. We had no idea how the mutated parasites would affect me. It was a risk we couldn't take.

Didn't need to take. Not with my boss going in alone. No unnecessary casualties. 

I don't know how he figures this place doesn't fall apart without him.

So we all sit around and watch, limp dicks in our hands, while he

I mean, only Ocelot keeps me from seeing if Huey's prosthetics are waterproof when he starts shitting up the horn with his bullshit. When Miller starts blubbering like a five-year-old. And Ocelot, Ocelot recalculates all those tactical losses.

I didn't need to see that he'd gotten out of there less than an hour before it went on lockdown. He knows it could've been him. Biological warfare is for rabid dogs with a death wish. 

I didn't need to see buddies of mine for years in Africa start humming the MSF theme song before my boss blew their heads open.

I didn't need to see my boss dig through the ashes of our mistakes to find something insp

Look. I had a moment. I thought to myself: what the hell am I doing. Nesting in the fucking friend zone while linguistic ebola or whatever the fuck my old boss put inside me could mutate at any time just like that one did. Or I cock it up and say just. One. Word. 

And they all die. I watch my boss put a bullet in Ocelot's head. Or Miller's. Or some kid he's picked up along the way.

Why? Because I like it here? Because it's comfortable? Because I

"I'm in love with the legend?" Hah, good one, Ocelot. People eat that shit up, don't they? Dumb bitch hates man, tries to kill man, realizes it was all a terrible mistake, falls in love. Depends how much the writer likes bad girls for how well that turns out for her.

Speak for yourself, sweetheart.

So I smash that tape to pieces. Sell Code Talker some line about "still wanting revenge on Big Boss" so I can't get cured, can't stick around. It's best to lie with the truth, after all. That's what our subject matter expert always says.

Play hide in a helicopter and feel pretty sorry for myself for a while. Figure if I'm going to go out, it's not going to be some lame swan dive off the Combat Platform: it's going to be the kind of thing you'd compose a rock ballad people shred for a century over. Yeah, I'm going to commit suicide by Red Army. See how many of them I can drag down to hell with me.

I am Jack’s acute lack of surprise when Ocelot takes a seat on the helo next to me. My boss rescued the pilot the kids took from somewhere outside our AO; straight up Heart of Darkness territory, living out his own withdrawal-fueled Conrad allegory with more ten-year-olds and less fat Marlon Brando. Now he takes an hour to do his start-up checks, just to make sure there are more middle-schoolers looking to mutiny in the back seat.

Ocelot can’t keep me from leaving. He knows it. I can disappear forever if I want to - maybe I always could.

He doesn’t need to tell me why he let my boss let a mass-murdering wife-killer go with a wrist-slap. A boat ride isn’t going to make a man like that think about what he’s done; Huey’ll lie to himself until the day he dies. I only wonder how deep he embedded the tracker for when Cipher inevitably picks Emmerich up to pick his brain about his doomsday robot. 

He’s quiet a while, and then: /Anything I can say to change your mind?/

Nope.

I’m not really the kind of girl swayed by speeches. They got old with my old boss, too.

/I think there’s still something between us that’s been unsaid./

Then he just… _looks_ at me. How do I describe it? He _sees_ me. I don’t realize until that moment that I’ve phased back into my flesh and Ocelot’s taking it all in for the first time. He turns to me and touches me like he’s never touched me before: it’s firmer, it lingers, his fucking hands are _warmer_ , somehow. He strokes my thigh up to my waist up to the side of my head and kisses me and it’s not slutty or chaste or awkward, it’s _passionate_ , and fucking christ boy, don’t do me like this, it’s been so _long_.

Okay okay okay. The brain in my head knows what he’s doing. I’ve seen it done before. Damn, he’s good. I know what he’s offering: to be my Soviet sex doll with feelings. My spetsnaz boyfriend with special forces grade tongue skills who says all the right things - except a couple of wrong things, just to make me believe it - for however long he needs to, if that’s the price of making me stay. 

I’m not such a dumb cunt I’ll do that to myself, though.

I won’t do it to him either.

That intensity in his eyes so close to the real thing I wonder how many years it took him to perfect it. 

The hurt when I kick him out looks real, too.

Oh, I don't know. An entire brigade's worth, probably. Maybe two, three.

Wasn't exactly expecting to get captured. Had thought, you know, I'd've sniped the hornet's nest enough they'd overlook the intel. Stupid, I know. But this wasn't my most thought-out plan and if you've been tracking so far you'd know I've come up with some real winners.

At least it's pretty softcore? Like, they've figured out that they need to keep me bundled up and out of sunlight. Don't know who leaked that. Maybe some captured XOF guy sold it for a quicker death. Can't say I blame him, if Ocelot's anything to go by. I mostly take a lot of boots to the chest and face, you know how it is. One to the crotch after I burst out laughing when one of them starts rubbing his dick on me.

I bite, eh?

But this is a shitty way to go. It's not exactly what I had in mind. Shriveling up in some dusty, piss-smelling hardshacks. It's every bit as bad as when Ocelot did it to me, only with less finesse and more erections. I've got a lot of time to _think_. That maybe there was another way to go about this. That maybe there's some deserted island with my name on it. Hell, even Eli's offer doesn't sound half-bad right now. My own 72-virgin paradise. 

When I see they've got a dumpster full of rain water nearby I decide, fuck it, at the very least my viking metal saga isn't over: but hey, not only do I get some of that, I get some sunlight as a bonus. Breathing room. 

God, it feels good to murder every single one of them with my bare hands. And feet. And teeth. I can really see where Ocelot's coming from.

If my boss hadn't shown up to the party 30 seconds after the last guest had passed out on the floor, I could've just phased on up over those cliffs to freedom.

In retrospect, we could've just buddy climbed out of there. Behind the ruins. My boss spent too many arm days making his thighs the size of oil rig struts to be great at climbing shit but I can kick a man into space at this point. Or we could've hid. Something.

But like I said: I wasn't full of great ideas at that juncture. I was days worth of pissed off, starved, and horny, and my sights were full of tanks.

Here, _here_ was our rock opera.

Oh there were dozens of them. Scores. And like a hundred soldiers - so many helicopters the downwash looked like a sandstorm. I'm blowing them a mile high while my boss Fultons the survivors. In zero vis - you should've seen it, I was threading those shots between needle-sized armour gaps, lining up three kills at a time, back flipping over incoming artillery fire... There's gotta be footage of it somewhere. There's gotta be. Didn't all get dumped with the brand name.

So, naturally, it's the _last fucking one_ that hits us. I know the gunner's got us locked in, I push my boy of the way, take one for the team. Had to do it, right? I wouldn't stand in front of a missile for no reason; _anybody'd_ know they can't fire and get out of the way before something supersonic like that. Obviously.

Now this I can deal with. Make my peace with, I mean. As far as biting it on the battlefield goes, riding into Valhalla on a barge of busted up T-62s having saved my boss from being pasted across his favourite wildflowers is in the top ten, easy.

But he can't let it go. No, he's got to save me, just like everything else.

I can't speak to tell him he's being a dumbass. That my life's not worth his. That snake venom probably won't even affect me. To tell him thanks. Or that it's easier to fireman carry somebody than to drag them, fuck, I don't weigh that much do I?

Nope, the only words I get to say are the ones that fuck myself over. Figures.

I knew it'd probably take more than a word to infect him. More than a couple of sentences. It took weeks of Kikongo spoken on mother base for the outbreak. Calculated risk.

Sure did activate the parasites, though. I could feel it - them - like when you know you're about to get a cold because your lymph glands swell up, right above your throat.

I could to talk to him now, if I wanted. On some tape he'd never miss - something about burgers or something, jesus, who would sit through that? There's like thirty fucking minutes of it.

Him. Just to hear Miller sound happy.

What? A song? I have no idea--

_Yes_ it does. It absolutely rhymes with "sun" - oh fuck you, you work on your rhyming scheme when you're trying to think of what to say to somebody you've never had a conversation with, and never will.

What's left, but to fade into the sand?

Hah hah, _nah_. You're right - I did think about it.

But what I realized down in Ocelot's private porn booth hasn't changed: I'm not dying for anybody's cause but mine. If my old boss wanted his anglocide apocalypse so bad he could have done it himself. Like my boss would have.

I'm not anybody's sacrificial _anything_ I'm not their suicide bomber I'm not the sad memory that gets them through the hard times I’m going to _live_ until somebody kills me - I'm giving myself a vocal chord amputation with my combat knife because fuck it, it works for gangrene, and what have I got to lose?

Oh yeah my bad ideas are really stitching themselves ass-to-mouth now. 

Belatedly, it occurs to me they might've been the ones keeping me alive. Was it them, or the One That Covers? Shit I really should've paid more attention to my old boss's bioterror basics classes.

I take a nap. A really long nap. Pretty sure I get covered in sand. Buried alive. Left to hibernate?

It's the storms that come with the changing seasons that uncover me. They cause landslides that sweep all the old year's debris down off the hillsides and into the rivers. Fresh water. And eventually, sunlight. That first fist up through the mud's the first breath of a shipwrecked traveller on dry land.

[I greet my boss again with a bullet that grazes between his horn and his hairline in the place we first met, spring of '85.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7962934)

And when I kiss his throat he breathes into my ear: ' _More, more, more_.'

 

But you didn’t bring me here to talk about me and my boss. First thing I do when I get back from a four-hour flight of Billy Idol on repeat so loud it sets off some of the automated defense systems is phase on over to the intel dome, because I know even before I see the days’, weeks’, months’ worth of intel tracking me - all the maps, all the resources, the screaming arguments with Miller over the fact he dispatched my boss to those ruins _seven times_ to find me - it was him.

He doesn’t need to say a word.

Never took him for an awkward hugger. He is one, though. 

We get some winks, leers, some ‘let’s give them some privacy’ from the Intel guys on their way out - I don’t think the whole ‘cocksucking cowboy is nailing the hottest girl on base’ gag never really old, it was right up there with ‘Quiet doesn’t write because she was raised by wolves in the Caucasus and will only fuck men who defeat her in single combat’ ball Ocelot got rolling later - and the first thing Ocelot says to me, with that soft, shit-eating smile:

/We really ought to teach you morse code./

Oh fuck off, of _course_ I know morse code.

/Oh, do you? As it happens, so does Pequod./

I don’t know whether to laugh or clock him.

/Sand makes for a good drawing or writing medium, too. You can even use your fingers. That iDroid has video feed. Why, I’m led to believe Miller spotted for a couple of flares you could use in just that kind of situation.../

I do both.

 

After a few days my boss acts just like I never left, and that’s just the way I like it. Miller lets him put my pictures back up. Miller’s unwedged the rod from his rectum a couple of inches, at this point. My boss has rallied us around the bling of our fallen and a new cause: disarmament. Don’t know if Miller thinks it’s penance for his past sins or he’s rediscovered his home country’s justifiable paranoia regarding the whole destroyer of worlds thing, but he’s hopped right on board. 

He comes to talk to me one time, tells me he’s got the R&D division working on some kind of portable UV lamp that’ll help keep me fully charged at night. Smells like a peace offering. Or maybe he’s made his peace with me as a weapon in his arsenal that needs maintenance, if nothing else.

Miller’s chowing on some greasy burger, oil and cheese in his stubble and lettuce in his teeth, and I’m shrugging like: ‘why’? He’s never done anything for me before.  
And he’s like: “Mphfhm, you did what I’m too much of a pussy to do, chomp chomp, you were willing to throw yourself in front of the boss. Last guy who did that took a piece… of… shrapnel…”

Then it’s like he bluescreens on me, just like Ocelot. Straight up drops that burger onto the deck. Angry hobbles off and smashes crates. 

Whatever. I feed it to DD.

 

Miller’s permanent PMS aside, life is good. The Diamond Dogs are starting to talk to me - well, at me - about shit that doesn’t involve threats or catcalls. There’s talk of letting me out of my cage, giving me quarters. Miller hates it; Miller hates everything, and it is _finally_ starting to get on my boss’s nerves. I’m not the kind of asshole who plays the passive-aggressive waiting game, but I am infinitely adaptable, and watching Miller sabotage his sole remaining relationship with the last person who gives a fuck about him is a schadenfreude feast. 

I know my boss won’t make a move while Miller’s in the picture. That’s fine. He looks lost whenever his sidekicks bicker instead of indulgent, hopeless instead of concerned when Miller his One True Love lashes out and Ocelot his Oldest Friend stands him up inscrutably; my boss starts sleeping with me in ACC around then. In the non-euphemistic sense.

It’s slow. Peaceful as life gets in the death dealing profession. I’ve memorized all the spots my boss’s favourite flowers bloom in our AO; finally beaten Pequod in poker; get high with Ocelot when the Intel boys and girls do their weekly grow-op harvest.

Then one night, after a routine mission, no kills no alerts all objectives achieved naturally, Miller trying to nag the boss into saving time and money on a stolen jeep while Ocelot tries to get him to satisfy his motorcycle daddy kink - you know, what’s that word, for using the weather for dramatic effect? Just like the night I almost offed myself, there’s a sandstorm - biggest one I ever saw.

Only this time the tide washes up the legendary tire fire in a trash heap himself. Cipher’s own aborted frankenhero come crawling out of the pail to smear placenta, baby shit, and neo-liberal post-nationalism on everything he touches.

Ah, fuck, let’s pause here. The rest of this story isn’t going to make much sense unless we go back a couple of volumes. All the way back to the first days of FOXHOUND, a little unit I used to be part of called MACV-SOG, and the big fucking lie that is Big Fucking Boss.


End file.
